LAX03LA105 · Aero Commander 690A
Aero Commander 690A · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From Tracy, CA to Lampson Field (1O2)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03LA105
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Aero Commander 690A
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander 690
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N132JH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tracy, CATo Lampson Field (1O2), Lakeport, CA
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Takeoff · roll/run
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of control on ground/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane veered off the runway surface during the takeoff ground roll and collapsed the right main landing gear after encountering an irrigation ditch at the side of the 40-foot-wide runway. A check pilot was accompanying the pilot on the flight so the pilot could gain experience in the newly purchased airplane. Prior to departure, the pilot performed a preflight inspection and the check pilot conducted a quick walk around visual examination of the airplane. As the airplane was on the departure roll, the pilot experienced a loss of directional control and veered off the right side of the runway. The check pilot stated that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane and thought that the pilot lost control of the airplane due to his limited experience in the airplane. The pilot had 33.2 hours in the accident airplane, all of which were accumulated in the 10-day period prior to the accident. According to the Commander 690A flight manual systems description, the nose wheel steering is hydraulically actuated by light toe pressure on the brake pedals in the desired direction of turn, and heavier pressure will apply the brake on that side as well as turn the nose wheel.
Probable cause
the failure of the pilot to maintain directional control during the departure roll on a narrow runway. A factor in the accident was the pilot's limited experience in the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03LA105
- Event ID
- 20030315X00341
- Case number
- LAX03LA105
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 433bf84d9bc5b456fba532de8ab61dc52d7ca61231ce6fa05374488346e91b2a; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:30:59.492Z.