LAX05FA175 · Cessna 182M
Cessna 182M · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Palm Springs International Airport (PSP) to John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX05FA175
- 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 182M
- 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
- N333LP
- Operator
- Garold A. Miller · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palm Springs International Airport (PSP), Palm Springs, CATo John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA), Santa Ana, 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
- Maneuvering · turn to reverse direction
- 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 terrain/water
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, 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 mountainous terrain in a box canyon while attempting to reverse course. The pilot originally indicated that he would fly westbound direct to a navigation fix at 8,500 feet, and then direct to his destination airport. After takeoff, the controller instructed him to fly a heading of 280 degrees to provide clearance for a jet departure behind him. The pilot then changed to a southbound departure to another landmark with the intention of proceeding direct to his destination airport. The pilot contacted departure control that he was at 1,800 feet, and climbing to 8,500 feet. They informed him that they had radar contact, and instructed him to resume his own navigation. The pilot turned west, and then south to approximately 190 degrees. As he passed the western end of a landmark street near the airport, he turned to the west, up the accident canyon. The radar track showed the airplane heading about 280 degrees at a mode C reported altitude of 2,700 feet msl. The last radar return had the airplane turning left at 3,100 feet, in an area of steeply rising terrain to the west, about 0.7 miles north of the accident site. The airplane came to rest on an easterly heading on the south side of the canyon. The nose of the airplane abutted a rock face. After disassembling the engine, investigators did not discover any anomalies that would have prevented normal engine operation and production of rated horsepower.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate in-flight planning/decision, and his failure to maintain clearance while maneuvering in rising terrain, resulting in an in-flight collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX05FA175
- Event ID
- 20050601X00696
- Case number
- LAX05FA175
- 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: 689c459b8b43c51ea80376abe7355487f2fd7619c1b90c40c8b8593dc9a59d4d; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:03:15.923Z.