NTSB CAROL · Event
Event LAX91FA139
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
THE PILOT MISJUDGED THE LIFTOFF SPEED, AND PREMATURELY ROTATED THE AIRCRAFT FOR TAKEOFF.
Factual narrative
AFTER TRAVELING ABOUT 1,000 FT ON ITS TAKEOFF ROLL, THE AIRCRAFT WAS SEEN BY WITNESSES AS BEGINNING ITS ROTATION. TOWER PERSONNEL REPORTED THEY COULD SEE THE BELLY OF THE AIRCRAFT. THE AIRCRAFT ROLLED LEFT, ITS LEFT WING CONTACTED THE RUNWAY, AND IT CONTINUED TO AN INVERTED POSITION. THE AIRCRAFT SLID DOWN THE RUNWAY AND THEN VEERED OFF ON TO THE GRASS ON THE NORTH SIDE OF THE RUNWAY. THE AIRCRAFT CAME TO A REST, INVERTED, ABOUT 100 FT OFF THE RUNWAY AND ABOUT 1,380 FT FROM THE LOCATION WHERE THE TAKEOFF ROLL BEGAN. THE AIRCRAFT OPERATING HANDBOOK INDICATED THE NORMAL TAKEOFF DISTANCE TO THE POINT OF ROTATION AND LIFTOFF SHOULD BE BETWEEN 1,350 AND 1,400 FT. THIS DISTANCE WAS COMPUTED USING THE AIRCRAFT'S WEIGHT AND THE REPORTED WEATHER AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT. A DEPARTING BOEING 737 WAS CLEARED FOR TAKEOFF ABOUT 5 MINUTES PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT AIRCRAFT'S TAKEOFF ROLL ON THE OPPOSITE RUNWAY. THE WINDS WERE CALM. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_1991_LAX91FA139.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type. Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
- NASA NTRS 2013 · Conference Paper
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- arXiv 2025 · arXiv preprint
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- NASA NTRS 2025 · Conference Paper
Reduction of Aircraft Noise Uncertainty for a Notional Supersonic Business Jet
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- Semantic Scholar 2024 · Article (BMC Medical Education)
Augmented reality visualization for ultrasound-guided interventions: a pilot randomized crossover trial to assess trainee performance and cognitive load
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- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2024 · Journal article (JAAER)
Assessing Past Airworthiness Directives And How Safety Management Systems May Benefit Aviation Product Design And Manufacturing
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) continues to promulgate Safety Management Systems (SMS) across aviation organizations when it recently issued SMS requirements for EASA certificated Pa…
- arXiv 2023 · arXiv preprint
Detection and Mitigation of Position Spoofing Attacks on Cooperative UAV Swarm Formations
Detecting spoofing attacks on the positions of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) within a swarm is challenging. Traditional methods relying solely on individually reported positions and pairwise distanc…
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