LAX03FA187 · Rockwell International Aero-Commander 112TC
Rockwell International Aero-Commander 112TC · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV) to Castle Airport (MER)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03FA187
- 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
- 1 · 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
Rockwell International Aero-Commander 112TC
- Aircraft type
- Rockwell AERO-COMMANDER 112TC
- 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
- N4696W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV), San Jose, CATo Castle Airport (MER), Merced, 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 · 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 encounter with weather
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Flightcrew › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Flightcrew › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The single engine airplane collided with mountainous terrain while flying beneath a cloud overcast, in low visibility, through a mountain pass. The pilot, accompanied by his certified flight instructor (CFI), was flying to a location across a mountain range in another valley for the pilot's commercial check ride. The instrument rated pilots were visually trying to follow a highway through a mountain pass. Prevailing weather conditions in the mountain pass were overcast ceiling at the mountaintops and ridges, and less than a mile visibility in fog. A resident who lives 1 mile from the crash site said the visibility was less than 300 feet in fog at the time of the accident. Extensive examination of the wreckage disclosed no evidence of a preimpact mechanical malfunction, failure, or fire.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate in-flight planning/decision by conducting VFR flight into IMC, and his failure to maintain terrain clearance. Contributing factors were low clouds, fog, and mountainous terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03FA187
- Event ID
- 20030618X00901
- Case number
- LAX03FA187
- 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: 298f7d54f9d40dca731dbacba80f767fe1952d803d2f749ed7b8d2bef5dc8a70; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:11:00.177Z.