LAX04FA300 · Consolidated Aeronautics, Inc Lake LA-4-200
Consolidated Aeronautics, Inc Lake LA-4-200 · Accident: dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid during takeoff
From Oroville, CA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX04FA300
- 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
Consolidated Aeronautics, Inc Lake LA-4-200
- Aircraft type
- Consolidated Aeronautics LAKE LA-4-200
- 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
- N1238L
- Operator
- Weldon Hord
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Oroville, CATo not recorded
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The amphibious airplane collided with the surface of a lake just after takeoff while flying low over the glassy-surfaced water. According to witnesses, the airplane was about 20 feet above the water and traveling about 70 miles per hour. Then, it "kissed" the surface, abruptly climbed up about 50 feet, turned to the left, and then descended into the water. Post-accident examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any mechanical malfunctions or anomalies. The airplane was equipped with pontoons on each wing that were secured to the wings using two forward brackets and a smaller aft attachment. The left pontoon was torn from the wing and located in the floating debris field. The right wing pontoon's aft attachment secured it to the wing; however, the pontoon had rotated from its installation position approximately 270 degrees and was lying with its right side flush against the bottom surface of the wing. The pontoon attach brackets remained on the wing structure and were bent in an inboard direction. The damage to the airplane, and the right pontoon deformation, was consistent with the right pontoon impacting the water unevenly first, with the final impact consistent with a nose and left wing down attitude. The pilot had accumulated about 278 hours in seaplanes prior to the accident and had last landed the airplane on water about 3 months prior to the accident. The pilot's toxicology report was positive for ephedrine and pseudoephedrine which, would not have a negative effect on the pilot's performance.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain clearance from the water's surface, which resulted in his dragging of the right wing pontoon during low-altitude flight. The glassy-surfaced water was a contributing factor to the accident.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX04FA300
- Event ID
- 20040828X01302
- Case number
- LAX04FA300
- 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: 16c53636c029e8a73f2f5416e1cd8ea07b62492c9b47b7dfc02c4616168e529d; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:22:05.814Z.