WPR22FA044 · Jahnke Lionel G GLASAIR III
Jahnke Lionel G GLASAIR III · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) en route
From Camarillo International Airport (CMA) to Phoenix, AZ
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR22FA044
- 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
Jahnke Lionel G GLASAIR III
- Aircraft type
- Jahnke Lionel GLASAIR
- 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
- N291KT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Camarillo International Airport (CMA), Camarillo, CATo Phoenix, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 31 years (built 1990)
- 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 · 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
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 on a cross-country flight in the experimental, amateur-built airplane under day visual meteorological conditions. He was reported missing the following day, and the wreckage was subsequently discovered along the route of flight near the summit of a mountain at an elevation about 9,720 ft mean sea level (msl). Automatic dependent surveillance – broadcast (ADS-B) data revealed that the pilot departed and climbed the airplane to an altitude about 9,500 ft msl on an easterly heading and roughly maintained this heading and altitude for the duration of the flight until impact. Both the ADS-B data and distribution of the wreckage were consistent with controlled flight into terrain in a near-level attitude with a high forward velocity and revealed no evidence of evasive action before impact.
The scope of the wreckage examination was limited due to the location of the accident site; however, all major components of the airplane were identified at the site. Additionally, ADS-B data was not consistent with the pilot experiencing a flight control or engine anomaly before the accident.
Whether the pilot may have experienced physiological incapacitation or impairment during the flight could not be determined based on the available information. No blood samples were available for toxicological testing; therefore, carboxyhemoglobin levels could not be determined. Testing of available muscle tissue indicated the pilot’s use of the sedating antihistamine doxylamine; however, this result could not be used to determine whether the drug had sedating or impairing effects that may have contributed to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from mountainous terrain for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information, which resulted in controlled flight into terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR22FA044
- Event ID
- 20211121104283
- Case number
- WPR22FA044
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2021-11-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a1ed71f8ce6f3b856048a3a69f9c2a9740186b467de048059f2f80e1867149c4; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:37:44.010Z.