LAX07LA118 · Ryan Navion A
Ryan Navion A · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From Los Banos Municipal Airport (LSN) to Los Banos Municipal Airport (LSN)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX07LA118
- 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
Ryan Navion A
- Aircraft type
- Ryan NAVION
- 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
- N4369K
- Operator
- Grant H. Lindeman · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Los Banos Municipal Airport (LSN), Los Banos, CATo Los Banos Municipal Airport (LSN)
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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 › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Impairment(alcohol)
- Pilot in command › Impairment(drugs)
- Wing › Overload
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Prior to the flight, the pilot and passenger had each consumed at least 8 to 10 beers. The pilot and passenger had departed from a local bar where patrons had overheard discussions between them about doing some "crazy" aerobatics. Recorded radar data was reviewed. During the last 10 minutes of the flight, the pilot performed high angle turns and pitch up maneuvers. During the last 30 seconds of flight, the pitch angle and vertical speed showed an increase to about 20 degrees and 2,500 feet per minute, respectively. The speed profile revealed the flight's speed was mostly in the region between structural cruise limit and never exceed speeds. Examination of the wreckage revealed the airplane experienced an in-flight break-up. All fracture surfaces were consistent with overload separations. Post accident toxicological tests on specimens from the pilot found a blood ethanol level of 222 mg/dL (0.222 percent) and hydrocodone in the blood at a level of 0.02 mg/L.
Probable cause
the pilot's intentional performance of aerobatic maneuvers that exceeded the design stress limits of the airplane structure. Also causal was the pilot's impairment due to the effects of alcohol consumption. Contributory was the pilot's impairment due to the effects of prescription medication.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX07LA118
- Event ID
- 20070416X00423
- Case number
- LAX07LA118
- 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: 14e35b243554b1df639ac3eebed44d5823b5bbf5cf66f919de2afa26a122fa42; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:46:26.653Z.