LAX05FA054 · Cessna 182P
Cessna 182P · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From San Gabriel Valley Airport (EMT) to Fullerton Municipal Airport (FUL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX05FA054
- 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
Cessna 182P
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 182
- 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
- N9187G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Gabriel Valley Airport (EMT), El Monte, CATo Fullerton Municipal Airport (FUL), Fullerton, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern base
- 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 object
- 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
- Tower
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, inadequate
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 a radio transmission tower while on an extended base leg of the traffic pattern at the Fullerton airport in day visual meteorological conditions. The pilot made contact with the control tower, indicating his position, and that he had the current ATIS information. The controller cleared the airplane for a left base entry to the runway. When the airplane was about 3 miles north of the airport the controller cleared the airplane to land. Shortly thereafter, the airplane impacted the radio transmission tower about 15 feet below the top. A review of the pilot's logbooks revealed that he had been to the airport at least four times prior to the accident flight. At the time of the accident, the sun was about 27 degrees above the horizon and about 20 degrees horizontally from the pilot's flight path. The transmission tower stood about 760 feet above ground level (agl), and was depicted on both the applicable Terminal Area Chart and in the Airport/ Facility Directory. The airport's traffic pattern altitude was 1,100 feet mean sea level (msl) or 1,004 feet agl. Historically, the airport property was used as an aircraft landing field starting in 1913, and has been continuously operated as an airport. The radio tower, located 1.77 nautical miles from the airport, was constructed in 1948. The setting of the altimeter found in the wreckage was in error and the altimeter would have displayed an altitude that was 50 feet higher than the airplane was in actuality.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate visual lookout and failure to maintain altitude/clearance from a transmission tower while on an extended base leg of the traffic pattern. A factor in the accident was the sun glare condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX05FA054
- Event ID
- 20041227X02035
- Case number
- LAX05FA054
- 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: dcbb348a7d085be8f0d131fc7ba71686de4e2181744e65ae8f1e1099d5675f0a; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:10:25.800Z.