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Atlas / NTSB / LAX87LA080

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event LAX87LA080

1987-01-10 PALO ALTO, California, United States Airport · PAO Minor 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N46354

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

AMERICAN AUTOGYRO INC SPARROWHAWK

Engine

AMA/EXPR UNKNOWN ENG

Seats / Engines

2 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

20050722

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A5A7E4

Registrant of record

GREIF JOSEPH P JR

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Factual narrative

THE STUDENT PILOT STATED THAT HE HAD JUST FINISHED PRACTICING 4 TOUCH-AND-GO WITH HIS FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR. THE FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR THEN EXITED THE AIRCRAFT AND INSTRUCTED THE STUDENT TO PRACTICE 5 SOLO TOUCH-AND-GO. ON THE TAKE-OFF RUN JUST PRIOR TO ROTATION, THE PASSENGER DOOR OPENED. THE STUDENT ATTEMPTED TO CLOSE THE DOOR WHEN HE LOST CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT AND RAN OFF THE RUNWAY COLLIDING WITH THE TERRAIN AND NOSED OVER. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1987_LAX87LA080.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (icing). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗