SEA08LA070 · Kidd Chris HARMON ROC
Kidd Chris HARMON ROC · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Taft Kern County Airport (L17) to New Cuyama Airport (L88)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA08LA070
- 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
Kidd Chris HARMON ROC
- Aircraft type
- Kidd Chris HARMON ROC
- 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
- N96KR
- Operator
- Kidd Chris
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Taft Kern County Airport (L17), Taft, CATo New Cuyama Airport (L88), New Cuyama, 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- Defining eventThe 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
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 departed a location where visual meteorological conditions existed, and was attempting to fly to another location that was also reporting visual meteorological conditions. During the flight, the pilot entered an area of hilly terrain that was covered by a low overcast ceiling of variable height. While maneuvering through that area in winds that were reportedly gusting to 10 miles per hour, the airplane impacted the terrain. No evidence was found of any anomaly or malfunction of the airframe, flight controls, or engine.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain an adequate terrain clearance altitude while maneuvering in mountainous, hilly terrain. Contributing to the accident were hilly terrain, a low ceiling and gusty winds.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA08LA070
- Event ID
- 20080211X00171
- Case number
- SEA08LA070
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 657274d1ed935925115ce6ba2fe0aaa54421672958714370c5d7a9e3e3d4435b; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:55:28.063Z.