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Atlas / NTSB / LAX78FA018

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event LAX78FA018

1978-01-02 MOJAVE, California, United States Fatal 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Historical record (pre-1982)

NTSB recorded this accident in the pre-1982 coded-field schema — structured fields rather than free-text narrative. Decoded codes use established NTSB single-letter taxonomies; cause factors remain verbatim pending the Form 6120.4 codebook lookup.

Aircraft

BEECH C-23 · N9723L

Damage

Destroyed

Craft type

Airplane

Classification

Accident

Light condition

Dawn

Weather

VMC

Phase of flight

Z

Operator type

D

Kind of flying

B0

Weather at impact

Sky

SCATTERED-ABOVE 1000 FEET

Wind

100° / 4 kt

Temp

52° F

Aircraft history

Serial number

000000M-1354

Total time

760 hrs

Pilot

Certificate

Commercial — instrument

Total hours

150

Age

25

Cause factors

  • 64/A/16 A
    PILOT IN COMMAND FAILED TO OBTAIN/MAINTAIN FLYING SPEED Cause — pilot/personnel action
  • 64/A/29 A
    PILOT IN COMMAND INADEQUATE PREFLIGHT PREPARATION AND/OR PLANNING Cause — pilot/personnel action
  • 82/J/M J
    WEATHER DOWNDRAFT,UPDRAFTS Joint cause

Decoded against the NTSB Form 6120.4 cause-factor codebook (ct_Pre1982 table). Each row shows the raw triplet, modifier (Cause / Factor / etc.), category, and specific code.

Source: NTSB pre-1982 historical archive. Docket 3 0384. Source file NTSB_1978_3_0384.txt. Modern CAROL record on data.ntsb.gov ↗.