LAX04LA320 · Hebb Avid Magnum
Hebb Avid Magnum · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Bryant Field (KO57) to O17 · Grass Valley, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX04LA320
- 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
- 0 · 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
Hebb Avid Magnum
- Aircraft type
- Hebb AVID MAGNUM
- 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
- N970JH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bryant Field (KO57), Bridgeport, CATo O17 · Grass Valley, 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Stall
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after takeoff in a 90-degree, 10-knot crosswind the pilot lost control of the airplane and it impacted terrain. The pilot said that during preflight preparations for the accident flight, he noted a crosswind from the left that he estimated to be greater than 10 nautical miles per hour, and at 90 degrees to the departure runway 34. Concerned about the crosswind, the pilot decided not to take passengers on the flight, as he had previously planned. The pilot stated that he was familiar with operating the airplane in similar crosswind conditions, and did not encounter difficulty taxing the airplane to the departure runway. After beginning the takeoff roll and becoming airborne, the airplane was upset and the pilot experienced a loss of control. A witness reported that the airplane took off with an estimated 90-degree crosswind to the runway. The windsock was about 90 percent full. During takeoff, the airplane drifted to the left, and climbed to about 100 feet. The airplane then rolled to the right and impacted terrain nose down, 30 to 40 feet east of the runway. The witness said the rudder was deflected fully to the right, and the right aileron was fully deflected down just before the airplane rolled off to the right and hit the ground. The pilot reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to adequately compensate for the crosswind condition and his failure to maintain an adequate airspeed while using crossed controls, which led to a stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX04LA320
- Event ID
- 20040929X01531
- Case number
- LAX04LA320
- 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: 5301864b73a4e92956d12db36886ec4e25c91745ae5eac7de0127139bdc1e84a; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:12:57.465Z.