Skip to content

Atlas / NTSB / LAX88FA264

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event LAX88FA264

1988-07-19 PORTOLA VALLEY, California, United States Airport · PAO Fatal 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Factual narrative

WHILE DINING WITH FRIENDS WITH WHOM HE RESIDED, THE PILOT TOLD THEM THAT HE WAS 'GOING FLYING'. AT THE COMPLETION OF THE FLIGHT HE WOULD FLY OVER THE HOUSE BEFORE HE RETURNED TO PALO ALTO AIRPORT (PAO). THE PILOT TWICE CIRCLED THE RESIDENCE WHICH IS ABT 7 MILES SOUTHWEST OF PAO AT A LOW ALTITUDE AND THEN PROCEEDED WEST. GROUND WITNESSES REPORTED THAT WHEN THE AIRPLANE WAS ABT 1/2 MILE WEST OF THE RESIDENCE IT ENTERED A 70 DEG NOSE HIGH ATTITUDE. THE MANEUVER RESEMBLED A LEFT HAMMERHEAD STALL EXCEPT BEFORE IT REACHED THE NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE IN ENTERED A LEFT SPIN. ONE WITNESS CLOSE TO THE ACCIDENT SITE RPTD THAT THE AIRPLANE HAD STOPPED ITS SPIN ROTATION AND WAS IN ABT A 45 DEG NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE AT IMPACT. THE WITNESSES NEAR THE ACCIDENT SITE REPTD THAT 1 OF THE ENGS SOUNDED IRREGULAR. THE POST CRASH INVESTIGATION DISCLOSED NO EVIDENCE OF ANY AIRPLANE OR ENGINE PREEXISTING MALFUNCTIONS OR FAILURES. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1988_LAX88FA264.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 ↗