- Date
- March 23, 1987, 09:00 local (17:00 UTC)
- Place
- Anza, CA
- Injuries
- 2 minor
- Damage
- Substantial damage
- Phase of flight
- Enroute
- Aircraft
- N2439TPiper PA-28-140
- Weather
- Visual (VMC) · Day
- Status
- Completed · report June 16, 1989
- Report
- Approved by Office Director
- FAA report
- 19870323008139A
- Case key
- 25546
From the NTSB’s public API. By law, NTSB reports can’t be used as evidence in lawsuits over the accident.
On this page
Sequence of events
NTSB’s coding before 2008: each occurrence and phase of flight, and the causes and factors under it. The codes are defined in NTSB’s coding manual.
Analysis
During a local sight seeing flt the plt entered a river valley in mountainous terrain at about 1,000 ft AGL. After about 5 miles, the plt decided to exit the narrowing valley with a climbing right turn over a ridge line. About 2/3 of the way up the slope, the plt realized that the acft might not make the top of the ridge line and there was insufficient altitude or airspeed to attempt to turn away from the rapidly rising slope safely so he elected to make a controlled landing at near stall speed. The acft contacted the mountainside about 300 ft below the top of the ridge line. The plt is an active duty military plt assigned to fly Lockheed C-141B transports and all his flt time is in high performance jets except for about 32 hours of general aviation flt experience obtained 2 years prior to the accident. The plt said that he overestimated the performance of the acft and had no prior experience in single engine prop mountain flying.
Aircraft
- Registration
- N2439T
- Reported as
- Piper PA-28-140
- Category
- Airplane
- Serial number
- 287225073
- Airframe hours
- 6,116
- Engine
- Lycoming O-320-E3D, 150 horsepower, reciprocating
- Damage
- Substantial damage
- Flight
- Personal · Part 91
- Registered owner
- Venable Aircraft Co
- Airworthiness certificate
- Standard, Normal
- Last inspection
- Annual · January 30, 1987 · 16 hours before
- Departed
- HMT · Hemet, CA
Matched to the registry by N-number and the event date; the registry’s history has gaps, so older matches can be wrong. Compare the reported make and model.
Flight crew
As NTSB recorded them. NTSB leaves out names.
- Role
- Pilot
- Age
- 27
- Certificates
- Commercial, Military
- Airplane ratings
- Single-engine land, Multi-engine land
- Instrument ratings
- Airplane
- Medical
- Class 2, Valid Medical--no waivers/lim.
- Seat
- Left
- Flight hours
- 1,397 total · 2 in this make and model · 949 as pilot in command · 143 in the last 90 days · 53 in the last 30 days · 1 in the last 24 hours
Weather
- Conditions
- Visual (VMC) · Day
- Wind
- 270° at 10 knots
- Visibility
- 50 statute miles
- Lowest ceiling
- None
- Altimeter
- 29.00 inHg
FAA reports on this event · 1
The FAA’s own accident and incident reports, matched to the aircraft by N-number and date.