LAX05LA283 · Avions Robin R.2160
California Flight Center Avions Robin R.2160 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Long Beach International Airport (LGB) to Catalina Airport (AVX)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX05LA283
- 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
- 1 · 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
Avions Robin R.2160
- Aircraft type
- Avions Robin R-2160
- 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
- N216RN
- Operator
- California Flight Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Long Beach International Airport (LGB), Long Beach, CATo Catalina Airport (AVX), Catalina, 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
- 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/spin
- 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(cfi) › Remedial action, not successful
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 impacted the water following an intentional spin, that was not recovered from. According to the surviving student pilot, the instructor was demonstrating a hammerhead maneuver followed by what the student believed was a loop and then a spin. The airplane began "violently spinning towards the water." The student believed he counted 7 or 8 spins to the right, but wasn't positive about the direction. He realized they were spinning too much and were rapidly losing altitude. The instructor told the student to remove his feet from the rudder pedals, and the student complied. The instructor continued with his attempt to stop the spin, to no avail. The instructor then called for a bailout and jettisoned the canopy. The student managed to successfully bailout of the airplane and felt the vertical stabilizer rush past him. He observed the airplane impact the water below him and noticed the instructor's parachute deployed and in the water. The instructor was fatally injured and had a "deep laceration of the right upper chest extending to the right shoulder". Post-accident examination of the instructor's parachute revealed no anomalies that would have prevented its full deployment. Considering the facts that the student successfully bailed out of the airplane before the instructor did, that the instructor's parachute had been deployed and was in the water before the student reached the water, and the instructor's injuries, it is likely that the instructor struck and became ensnared on a portion of the airplane during the bailout. The wreckage was not recovered, therefore, the reason for the instructor's inability to recover from the spin could not be determined.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's unsuccessful recovery from a spin. The underlying reason was not determined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX05LA283
- Event ID
- 20050906X01388
- Case number
- LAX05LA283
- 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: 8827ab81f7d118e8ec87640898c9e923f91b264c9e7a43edd222a8946ab62257; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:54:33.840Z.