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Atlas / NTSB / LAX78FA045

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event LAX78FA045

1978-05-01 PALMDALE, 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 S35 · N5851S

Damage

Destroyed

Craft type

Airplane

Classification

Accident

Light condition

Dawn

Weather

VMC

Phase of flight

D9

Operator type

D

Kind of flying

B0

Weather at impact

Sky

BROKEN

Aircraft history

Serial number

000000D-7745

Total time

1,249 hrs

Pilot

Certificate

Commercial — instrument

Age

66

Probable cause (from PRE1982.MDB)

LEFT WING & TAIL SURFACES MISSING.

Investigator remarks

ACFT OBSERVED BELOW BASE OF CLOUDS SPINNING WITH

Cause factors

  • 64/A/04 A
    PILOT IN COMMAND CONTINUED VFR FLIGHT INTO ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS Cause — pilot/personnel action
  • 64/A/66 A
    PILOT IN COMMAND SPATIAL DISORIENTATION Cause — pilot/personnel action
  • 64/A/09 A
    PILOT IN COMMAND EXCEEDED DESIGNED STRESS LIMITS OF AIRCRAFT Cause — pilot/personnel action
  • 82/J/Y J
    WEATHER OTHER Joint cause
  • 88/J/49 J
    MISCELLANEOUS ACTS,CONDITIONS SEPARATION IN FLIGHT 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 2435. Source file NTSB_1978_3_2435.txt. Modern CAROL record on data.ntsb.gov ↗.