LAX03LA172 · Piper PA-44-180
Airline Transport Professionals Corporation of USA Piper PA-44-180 · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From Livermore Municipal Airport (KLVK) to Sacramento Executive Airport (SAC)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03LA172
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-44-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-44
- 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
- N3060K
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Livermore Municipal Airport (KLVK), Livermore, CATo Sacramento Executive Airport (SAC), Sacramento, 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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(cfi) › Atc clearance, not verified
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 collided with trees and rising terrain while on an instrument flight plan and in communication with Air Traffic Control (ATC). The instrument rated certified flight instructor (CFII) and pilot under instruction executed the Livermore One standard instrument departure (SID) and were initially cleared to 4,000 feet when they were given a takeoff clearance. After being switched to departure frequency, the CFII called departure control but did not receive a response. A short time later the departure controller issued a clearance to another aircraft to maintain 2,000 feet and a heading of 010 degrees. The CFII acknowledged this clearance with his airplane's abbreviated call sign and complied with the instructions. The ATC controller did not detect the incorrect read back. The airplane was in instrument meteorological conditions and below the radar acquisition altitude. The CFII saw terrain and trees at wing level directly ahead through breaks in the clouds, took control of the airplane, and made a hard climbing right turn. The CFII then reported to ATC that they had a collision with terrain and were climbing to 3,000 feet. The ATC controller responded and cleared them to 5,000 feet, then further cleared the flight to another airport where a successful landing was accomplished. The left wing leading edge, left aileron and left engine nacelle sustained substantial impact damage. Audition of the recorded air/ground communications tapes disclosed that the pilot of N3060K exclusively used the abbreviated call sign of 60K when communicating with ATC and the ATC controller's annunciation of call signs were often abbreviated, spoken quickly, and difficult to understand.
Probable cause
the pilots acceptance of a clearance meant for another aircraft. Contributing to the accident was the failure of departure controller to detect the pilot's incorrect read back and the controllers improper radio technique, which increased the chances of call sign confusion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03LA172
- Event ID
- 20030605X00790
- Case number
- LAX03LA172
- 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: 3f41fb3e29506d6c04c02e98d0f292a0dd28aec638afddd83803b39a971f62df; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:14:41.957Z.