LAX03LA289 · Butzbach Smith Miniplane DSA1
Butzbach Smith Miniplane DSA1 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Lake Wohlford, CA (private airstrip) to Private airstrip
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03LA289
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Butzbach Smith Miniplane DSA1
- Aircraft type
- Butzbach SMITH MINIPLANE DSA1
- 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
- N40DB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lake Wohlford, CA (private airstrip)To Private airstrip
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 in flight
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Low altitude flight/maneuver, attempted
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 the ground while maneuvering. The pilot flew over the airport approximately 50 to 100 feet above ground level (agl), and then entered a barrel roll. The pilot lost altitude at the end of the maneuver and impacted the ground. The debris field was approximately 150 square feet. The top wing of the biplane was sheared off and control continuity was unable to be established due to the damage sustained to the airplane. The pilot had around 1,700 hours total flying time, with limited aerobatic experience.
Probable cause
The pilot's low level aerobatic maneuver and his failure to maintain control of the airplane, which resulted in an uncontrolled descent and impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03LA289
- Event ID
- 20030918X01558
- Case number
- LAX03LA289
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2003-09-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 690b9d6177daf88037a1341373872bddfde01a486d462a73112ada5e794bf080; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:57:19.166Z.