LAX05FA114 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Big Bear City Airport (L35) to French Valley Airport (F70)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX05FA114
- 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
Piper PA-28-140
- 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
- N9956W
- Operator
- Durwood D. Johnson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Big Bear City Airport (L35), Big Bear City, CATo French Valley Airport (F70), Murrieta, 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/mush
- 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 › Airspeed, 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 airplane encountered a stall/mush condition during the takeoff initial climb and descended until colliding with a roadside guardrail about 1 mile beyond the end of the runway. The guardrail was located beneath power lines having an approximate elevation of 57 feet above the airport's elevation. Prior to takeoff, the pilot added 25 gallons of fuel for the planned 43-mile (direct) flight. This increased the airplane's gross weight to within 34 pounds of its maximum certificated gross weight. The pilot heard the airport's automated weather broadcast that the density altitude was at least 8,100 feet. The pilot did not consult the available Piper "Owner's Handbook" that indicated the maximum elevation published for takeoff was for a 7,000-foot density altitude condition. At this altitude, about 3,800 feet are required to takeoff and clear a 50-foot obstacle. At an 8,100-foot density altitude, an undetermined additional distance would be required. The pilot allowed the passenger to perform the takeoff. The passenger held a student pilot certificate, had about 15 hours of total flight time, and had not soloed. The stall warning light illuminated several times during the approximately 2-minute-long flight, and the pilot took over the controls from the passenger. A witness observed the airplane 15 to 20 seconds before it crashed. The witness noted that the airplane was in a nose high pitch attitude, with its nose 10 to 15 degrees above the horizon. Then, the airplane's nose lowered, and the airplane descended until impacting the guardrail. The pilot subsequently reported that the maximum altitude gained during the flight was about 200 feet above ground level, following which he encountered a downdraft. The airplane's "Owner's Handbook" indicates that at an 8,100-foot density altitude, the maximum rate of climb is about 325 feet per minute. No preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures were identified during examination of the wreckage.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed that resulted in an inadvertent stall/mush during initial climb. Contributing factors were the pilot's inadequate preflight preparations and the high density altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX05FA114
- Event ID
- 20050321X00341
- Case number
- LAX05FA114
- 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: 62ba91ee770cac8b1a76fd45d3b56d4c7e7d33c406ff4087f4a2e429de5e32af; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:09:11.634Z.