LAX06CA085 · Piper Seneca
Hollywood Aviators Piper Seneca · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Van Nuys Airport (VNY) to Van Nuys Airport (VNY)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX06CA085
- 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 Seneca
- Aircraft type
- Piper SENECA
- 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
- N4495T
- Operator
- Hollywood Aviators
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Van Nuys Airport (VNY), Van Nuys, CATo Van Nuys Airport (VNY), Van Nuys, 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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 on ground/water
- 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 › Directional control, not obtained/maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Remedial action, delayed
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After touchdown the airplane veered off the right side of the runway and collided with a taxiway sign and a hangar. Both the instructor and the pilot manipulating the controls reported that they had just performed a simulated right engine out approach and landing. The pilot noted a left crosswind condition during the landing and the instructor said that both throttles were reduced to idle for touchdown. After touchdown, the pilots stated that the left wing rose up causing the right wing to strike the runway. The airplane veered off the runway and became airborne. The instructor said that the airplane was in a nose high steep right bank configuration and that the pilot was not able to regain control of the airplane. The instructor physically verified that the throttles were at idle and lowered the nose. The airplane contacted the taxiway again, striking a taxiway sign, and started to slide in a sideways motion. The landing gear collapsed and the airplane slid into a hangar. Both pilots stated that there were no mechanical problems with the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during landing. Also causal was the flight instructor's delayed remedial action and inadequate supervision of the flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX06CA085
- Event ID
- 20060202X00152
- Case number
- LAX06CA085
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2006-01-09.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 72f6bfdea24d71761fd62e90b37a3c870c4e793144244f3c4c0f6dd0911616e4; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:50:15.053Z.