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Atlas / NTSB / LAX80FA055

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event LAX80FA055

1980-02-17 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

PIPER PA-28 · N4517X

Damage

Destroyed

Craft type

Airplane

Classification

Accident

Light condition

Dusk

Weather

IMC

Phase of flight

D9

Operator type

D

Kind of flying

B0

Weather at impact

Sky

OVERCAST/LOWER SCATTERED

Wind

240° / 42 kt

Aircraft history

Serial number

000007610034

Total time

1,214 hrs

Pilot

Certificate

Commercial — instrument

Total hours

468

Age

19

Probable cause (from PRE1982.MDB)

000FT OF SFC OVR ROUGH TER.WINDS ALOFT TO 50KTS.

Investigator remarks

SIGMET H6 STATED SEV TURB BLW 24000FT,ESP W/IN 6

Cause factors

  • 64/A/40 A
    PILOT IN COMMAND INITIATED FLIGHT IN ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS Cause — pilot/personnel action
  • 64/A/05 A
    PILOT IN COMMAND CONTINUED FLIGHT INTO KNOWN AREAS OF SEVERE TURBULENCE Cause — pilot/personnel action
  • 82/J/M J
    WEATHER DOWNDRAFT,UPDRAFTS Joint cause
  • 82/J/L J
    WEATHER TURBULENCE, ASSOCIATED W/CLOUDS AND/OR THUNDERSTORMS Joint cause
  • 82/J/H J
    WEATHER UNFAVORABLE WIND CONDITIONS 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 3289. Source file NTSB_1980_3_3289.txt. Modern CAROL record on data.ntsb.gov ↗.