LAX07LA099 · Mallian Rocket II
Mallian Rocket II · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Mojave Air & Space Port (MHV) to Meadows Field (BFL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX07LA099
- 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
Mallian Rocket II
- Aircraft type
- Mallian ROCKET
- 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
- N789JM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mojave Air & Space Port (MHV), Mojave, CATo Meadows Field (BFL), Bakersfield, 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- 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 › Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A flight of six airplanes, including the accident airplane, were returning back to their home airport following a morning flight. The route of flight took the group of airplanes over a local mountain range, which had turbulent weather conditions. Another pilot in the group reported that the winds aloft were between 40 to 70 knots over the mountains, and that he and his passenger were thrown about inside the cockpit. The pilot further reported that during the flight back, there were no radio communications from the accident pilot. Witnesses reported seeing the airplane flying low and fast over a vineyard, and it was then observed in a nose-down attitude that continued to ground impact on flat terrain. The witnesses did not hear any unusual engine sounds prior to the airplane's impact with the ground. The accident site was about 8 miles from the mountain range. Radar data showed that a target identified as the accident airplane was established at 4,900 feet (4,400 agl) at 250 knots. The radar target was then observed to enter a rapid descent to 2,800 feet (2,300 feet agl) prior to dropping off the radar. An inspection of the airframe and engine revealed no obvious mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
Loss of control during cruise for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX07LA099
- Event ID
- 20070314X00295
- Case number
- LAX07LA099
- 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: bd178037924d55a085a23590fdcf0e3f048c22724ea45c41ab38b16c7ccfdf8c; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:49:12.483Z.