LAX04FA137 · Piper PA-28-161
Plus One Flyers Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT) to Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX04FA137
- 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
- 2 · 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
Piper PA-28-161
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N9199Z
- Operator
- Plus One Flyers
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT), North Las Vegas, NVTo Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF), San Diego, 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
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Low altitude flight/maneuver, intentional
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
!!THIS CASE WAS MODIFIED JANUARY 31, 2006!!
The airplane collided with mountainous desert terrain in a box canyon during low altitude flight maneuvering. The pilot, a military helicopter pilot, was checked out in the airplane 4 days prior to the accident. He held approximately 500 hours total flight time and 150 hours flight time in airplanes. He and his passenger arrived at their destination 2 days prior to the accident. After fueling the airplane, they departed for the return flight home. Radar plots ending about 17 miles from the accident site indicated that the airplane maintained an approximate mean sea level (msl) altitude of 3,500 feet (about 100 feet above ground level) as it flew in a southerly direction, with the surrounding terrain rising to 4,400 feet msl at a rate of increase per mile that was about twice the climb capability of the airplane. The wreckage site was located in a canyon, at an elevation of 3,780 feet msl. The top of the ridges behind the accident site rose to 4,400 feet msl. The toxicological report for the pilot was positive for ethanol, but the state of the specimens evaluated made it impossible to determine whether the ethanol was produced post-mortem or was a result of ingestion of alcohol. No mechanical or control anomalies were found with either the airframe or engine during the post-accident examinations.
Probable cause
!!THIS CASE WAS MODIFIED JANUARY 31, 2006!!
the pilot's failure to maintain adequate clearance with the rising terrain, while maneuvering at low altitude in a mountainous area.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX04FA137
- Event ID
- 20040224X00229
- Case number
- LAX04FA137
- 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: 5da48c6fe16b893ffeec5db91b9ba7aae8f2783d074e9b7b23f6144bde3e4b24; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:34:07.737Z.