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Atlas / NTSB / LAX91LA069

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event LAX91LA069

1991-01-05 HILO, Hawaii, United States Airport · ITO Serious 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN AN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED WHILE MANEUVERING. A FACTOR IN THE ACCIDENT WAS THE PILOT'S DECISION TO ATTEMPT STEEP AND ABRUPT MANEUVERS DURING THE TAKEOFF INITIAL CLIMB PHASE.

Factual narrative

SEVERAL GROUND WITNESSES ON THE AIRPORT REPORTED THAT THE AIRCRAFT INITIATED A STEEP CLIMB AFTER LIFTOFF, THEN SEEMED TO ROLL INTO A STEEP RIGHT TURN AT ABOUT MIDFIELD. THE AIRCRAFT SEEMED TO STALL AND ABRUPTLY ROLL TO THE LEFT OVER THE TOP INTO A SPIN ENTRY. THE AIRCRAFT WAS OBSERVED TO INITIATE A RECOVERY FROM THE SPIN BUT DID NOT REGAIN LEVEL FLIGHT PRIOR TO COLLIDING WITH THE GROUND IN AN AIRPORT RAMP AREA. THE HILO ATCT SAID THE PILOT REQUESTED A RIGHT TURN OUT ON DEPARTURE TO PROCEED TO THE LOCAL PRACTICE AREA. THE AIRCRAFT WAS EXAMINED BY AN FAA AIRWORTHINESS INSPECTOR FROM THE HONOLULU FSDO. THE INSPECTOR FOUND NO EVIDENCE OF A PREIMPACT MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE OF THE ENGINE OR AIRCRAFT CONTROL SYSTEM. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1991_LAX91LA069.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 ↗