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Atlas / NTSB / LAX91LA120

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event LAX91LA120

1991-03-02 MARANA, Arizona, United States None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE CLEARANCE FROM THE LEAD AIRPLANE. A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR WAS THE PILOT'S INADEQUATE VISUAL LOOKOUT.

Factual narrative

THE PILOTS OF TWO BOEING A75 AIRPLANES WERE PRACTICING FORM UPS FOR AN AIR SHOW. BY PRE-ARRANGEMENT, THE LEAD PILOT ENTERED A RIGHT 20 DEGREE BANK AND BEGAN TURNING. THE PILOT WHO WAS IN TRAIL WAS SUPPOSED TO PASS BENEATH THE LEAD AIRPLANE'S RIGHT SIDE AND FORM UP ON THE LEAD AIRPLANE'S LEFT SIDE. DURING THE CROSSING MANEUVER, THE PILOT OF THE TRAILING AIRPLANE LOST SIGHT OF THE LEAD AIRPLANE AND PULLED UP PREMATURELY, COLLIDING WITH THE BOTTOM OF THE LEAD AIRPLANE'S LEFT WING. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1991_LAX91LA120.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 ↗