Skip to content

Atlas / NTSB / LAX92FA367

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event LAX92FA367

1992-08-27 SANTA PAULA, California, United States Airport · SZP Fatal 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

THE FAILURE OF BOTH PILOTS TO SEE AND AVOID EACH OTHER. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE AZIMUTH OF THE SETTING SUN AND THE CESSNA 182 PILOTS NON STANDARD FLIGHT PATTERN.

Factual narrative

THE CFI AND HIS STUDENT IN A C-150 WERE PRACTICING TOUCH AND GO'S AND ANNOUNCING THEIR INTENTIONS ON CTAF 122.9, WHICH THEY HAD BEEN MONITORING. THE CFI SAID HE OBSERVED NO TRAFFIC AHEAD IN THE PATTERN AND HE SCANNED FOR TRAFFIC THROUGHOUT THE PATTERN AND DID NOT SEE ANYTHING. HE SAID HE ALSO ANNOUNCED THE TURN TO BASE OVER THE CTAF. THE CFI STATED 'FROM THIS POINT I TRANSFERRED MY ATTENTION BETWEEN MY STUDENT AND THE APPROACH AND LANDING STAGE OF THE FLIGHT.' HE SAID AS WE TURNED FINAL WE 'CLIPPED' ANOTHER ACFT. THE CFI STATED THAT HE WAS AT THE CONTROLS AT THE TIME OF THE COLLISION. WITNESSES STATED THAT THE ACFT C-182, WAS OBSERVED FLYING UPWIND AGAINST THE TRAFFIC PATTERN AT AN ALT HIGHER THAN THE PATTERN. THE AIRCRAFT THEN CROSSED THE END OF RWY 22 AND ENTERED A HIGH RT DOWNWIND, THEN TURNED A HIGH LONG FINAL FOR RWY 22. AT THE SAME TIME THEY NOTICED THE C-150 ON A LEFT BASE LEG THEN THE COLLISION. THE PREVIOUS CTAF OF 122.7 HAD RECENTLY BEEN CHANGED TO 122.9 CTAF. THE STANDARD TRAFFIC PATTERN FOR RWY 22 IS LT HAND. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1992_LAX92FA367.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 ↗