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Atlas / NTSB / LAX92LA008

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event LAX92LA008

1991-10-05 FLAGSTAFF, Arizona, United States Airport · FLG Minor 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

AN INADVERTENT STALL/MUSH DUE TO THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN THE APPROPRIATE AIRSPEED DURING THE TAKEOFF ATTEMPT. FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT WERE THE HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE AND THE INADEQUATE PREFLIGHT PLANNING BY THE PILOT.

Factual narrative

THE DENSITY ALTITUDE AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT WAS CALCULATED TO BE IN EXCESS OF 9,800 FEET. NUMEROUS GROUND WITNESSES AT THE AIRPORT REPORTED THAT THE AIRCRAFT ROTATED IN A NOSE HIGH ATTITUDE, CLIMBED TO ABOUT 30 FEET ABOVE RUNWAY 21 AND FLEW ALONG ITS 7,000 FOOT LENGTH WITHOUT GAINING ANY ADDITIONAL ALTITUDE. THE AIRCRAFT WAS OBSERVED TO DESCEND IN THE SAME RELATIVE NOSE HIGH ATTITUDE INTO THE GROUND ABOUT 100 YARDS BEYOND THE DEPARTURE END OF THE RUNWAY. A POST CRASH FIRE STARTED AFTER THE IMPACT SEQUENCE AND CONSUMED THE AIRCRAFT. ALL OF THE WITNESSES REPORTED HEARING STRONG ENGINE SOUNDS DURING THE ACCIDENT SEQUENCE FROM THE TAKEOFF TO GROUND IMPACT. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1991_LAX92LA008.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 ↗