LAX07LA143 · Beech B36TC
Beech B36TC · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Glendale Municipal Airport (GEU) to Jack Northrop Field Hawthorne Municipal Airport (HHR)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX07LA143
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech B36TC
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N3172L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Glendale Municipal Airport (GEU), Glendale, AZTo Jack Northrop Field Hawthorne Municipal Airport (HHR), Hawthorne, 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
- Approach · IFR final approach
- 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 object
- 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
- Wire, static
- 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 › IFR procedure, not followed
- Pilot in command › Minimum descent altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot contacted approach control and requested a visual flight rules (VFR) approach to the airport. During the approach, the pilot attempted to maintain VFR, however, was unable due to low ceilings and haze. The controller then cleared the pilot for a localizer approach to the runway. During the approach, the airplane descended below the minimum descent altitude (MDA) and the controller obtained a minimum safe altitude warning alert. The controller then asked the pilot if he had the airport in sight. The pilot replied that he did not have the airport in sight and he was underneath the clouds. The pilot was cleared to change frequency, and no further communications were received from the pilot. The last radar return for the target was in the area of the accident site at a mode C reported altitude of 300 feet mean sea level (msl), or about 140 feet above ground level. The airplane collided with two static cables located adjacent to a high-tension tower about 1.5 miles east of the airport. The height of the tower was 118 feet and the terrain elevation was 164 feet. The airplane then impacted terrain and came to rest inverted. Examination of the airframe and engine revealed no anomalies. On the morning of the accident, the pilot received his complex and high performance airplane endorsements. At the time of the accident, the pilot had accumulated 237 total flight hours and 15 flight hours in the accident airplane. The accident flight was the pilot's first solo flight in the airplane. Review of the pilot's logbook disclosed that no instrument flights or approaches were recorded in preceding 6 months of logged flights.
Probable cause
the pilot's descent below the published minimum descent altitude for the instrument approach procedure, which resulted in a collision with wires and terrain. Contributing to the accident were the pilot's lack of recent experience in the accident airplane and in instrument meteorological conditions, and the night lighting conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX07LA143
- Event ID
- 20070510X00545
- Case number
- LAX07LA143
- 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 2007-04-30.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a127fa2695ed86b6c37184e84d4dcf68c81522ad2045759aaa115f3d2b7df0be; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:49:34.430Z.