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Atlas / NTSB / LAX88FA204

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event LAX88FA204

1988-05-30 ELOY, Arizona, United States Airport · E60 Fatal 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT DURING TAKEOFF CLIMB RESULTING IN AN INADVERTENT SPIRAL. CONTRIBUTING TO THIS ACCIDENT WAS THE PILOT'S LACK OF TOTAL EXPERIENCE IN THE AIRCRAFT MAKE AND MODEL.

Factual narrative

SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF, DURING TAKEOFF CLIMB, AIRCRAFT WAS OBSERVED OUT OF CONTROL SPIRALLING TO GROUND. PILOT HAD RESTORED THE AIRCRAFT AND HAD ONLY 12 HOURS OF FLIGHT EXPERIENCE IN MAKE AND MODEL. PILOT HAD FAILED HIS FIRST FLIGHT TEST FOR PRIVATE PILOT RATING 17 MONTHS PRIOR TO ACCIDENT. IMPROPER USE OF FLIGHT CONTROLS DURING STALL RECOVERY WAS CITED IN NOTICE OF DISAPPROVAL. THERE WAS NO RECORD OF PILOT RECEIVING FORMAL TRAINING IN ACCIDENT AIRCRAFT MAKE AND MODEL. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1988_LAX88FA204.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 (stall). 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 ↗