LAX04FA177 · Piper PA-32R-301T
Piper PA-32R-301T · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during initial climb
From Ukiah Municipal Airport (UKI) to Willows Glenn County Airport (WLW)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX04FA177
- 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
Piper PA-32R-301T
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N4130D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ukiah Municipal Airport (UKI), Ukiah, CATo Willows Glenn County Airport (WLW), Willows, 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, initiated
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The non-instrument rated private pilot attempted to depart an airport in instrument meteorological conditions. Prior to departure, the pilot talked to another, airborne pilot in the area, and confirmed the airport's reported conditions of an overcast layer at 100 feet above ground level (agl). The accident pilot indicated to the other pilot that he intended to depart VFR. Several witnesses reported that they observed the airplane departing to the south. It then turned toward the west at low level and subsequently turned back to the east. They further noted that the engine sound remained constant, continuing until the sound of a loud crash. The airplane contacted vegetation just prior to colliding with the ground, and the debris path continued along a southerly heading. Investigators examined the extensively crushed and fragmented wreckage, and identified no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures. The pilot had logged about 7 hours of simulated instrument time.
Probable cause
The non-instrument rated pilot's flight intentional flight into instrument meteorological conditions during takeoff-initial climb, which resulted in spatial disorientation, a subsequent loss of aircraft control, and an uncontrolled descent into terrain. A factor in the accident was the pilot's lack of an instrument rating and a low ceiling.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX04FA177
- Event ID
- 20040409X00441
- Case number
- LAX04FA177
- 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: bbc7af9d708c84e4eb8062b717e534c0562efc201bfcef3333845b78e4c445b7; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:30:41.549Z.