LAX07FA160 · Diamond Aircraft Industries DA 40
Southwest Flight Center Diamond Aircraft Industries DA 40 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Scottsdale Airport (SDL) to Sundsvall-Härnösand Airport (SDL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX07FA160
- 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
Diamond Aircraft Industries DA 40
- Aircraft type
- Diamond DA-40
- 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
- N512DS
- Operator
- Southwest Flight Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Scottsdale Airport (SDL), Scottsdale, AZTo Sundsvall-Härnösand Airport (SDL)
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Buzzing, intentional
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 telephoned an acquaintance who was boating on a lake, and informed him that he planned to overfly the lake. At the end of the evening's civil twilight, witnesses observed the airplane approach the lake. The pilot telephoned the acquaintance and asked him to shine a light toward the airplane to facilitate being located on the lake. Other recreational boaters in the vicinity reported observing the airplane perform low altitude maneuvers, including a steep pull-up and a 70-degree angle bank. Witnesses estimated that some maneuvers were performed within a wingspan or two above the lake. The witnesses said the engine was not sputtering and sounded "real strong." During one of the buzzing maneuvers, the airplane descended into the lake, fragmented, and sank. The accident occurred minutes after the end of civil twilight with a marginally visible horizon. A majority of the wreckage, to include the engine, was not recovered.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain sufficient altitude above the surface of water during an intentional buzzing maneuver. Contributing to the accident was the nighttime lighting environment.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX07FA160
- Event ID
- 20070523X00623
- Case number
- LAX07FA160
- 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 2007-05-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e3748947ae74138ea6bf3a63eb9991055a9d49f3ed4aea4bd2463589e44c8de1; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:38:24.858Z.