LAX08FA203 · Piper PA-32-300
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) en route
From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT) to Byron Airport (C83)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX08FA203
- 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
- 4 · 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
Piper PA-32-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N4063W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Las Vegas Airport (VGT), North Las Vegas, NVTo Byron Airport (C83), Byron, 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 · climb to cruise
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot's initial course after takeoff would have put the airplane passing to the north of a mountain range. As the airplane continued the climb, the pilot changed course towards the mountainous terrain. The air traffic controller asked the pilot if he would be flying southwest of the mountain range, to which the pilot replied in the affirmative. The air traffic controller then terminated radar services. The airplane then made two heading changes and continued to fly into a mountain valley area. Witnesses located about 6 miles further into the valley observed the airplane flying at altitudes of 300 feet above ground level and below, and towards rising terrain. Witnesses additionally reported hearing steady engine noise consistent with high rpm. The airplane then collided with a tree and rising terrain at the base of a box canyon. The accident site was located at 7,660 feet, on a 10-degree uphill sloping valley floor. The accident site was about 6 miles west, and 860 feet above the final radar return, and 26 miles west, and 5,455 feet above the departure airport. Steep sloping canyon walls with elevations ranging between 10,000 and 11,918 feet surrounded the site immediately to the north, west, and south. From the accident site's elevation, the peak of the canyon's rim rose in excess of the airplane's climb performance capability. The calculated density altitude at the accident elevation was about 11,000 feet. The service ceiling for the airplane at a maximum gross weight was 16,250 feet. Within the valley area, about 4 miles west of the last radar return, a course reversal turn would have been possible using a bank angle of about 30 degrees. At the accident location, there was insufficient clearance from terrain to perform a course reversal. Investigators found no evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures during the examination.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from mountainous terrain and his selection of a cruise altitude that provided inadequate terrain clearance. Contributing to the accident were the high density altitude and the rapidly rising terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX08FA203
- Event ID
- 20080707X00983
- Case number
- LAX08FA203
- 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. 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: 49f92a4f387129868a49036f6cabdd11145d6975ce20dfe42a564942aed97cdc; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:12:29.065Z.