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Atlas / NTSB / LAX92LA365

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event LAX92LA365

1992-02-23 POINT REYES STN, California, United States Fatal 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N24CE

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

BRM AERO S R O BRISTELL LSA

Year of manufacture

2019

Engine

BOMBARDIER ROTAX (ALL)

Seats / Engines

2 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

20190826

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A22DDD

Registrant of record

KERCHER ASSOCIATES LLC

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

IMPROPER PREFLIGHT PLANNING BY THE PILOT IN COMMAND BY EXCEEDING THE AIRPLANE'S MAXIMUM ACROBATIC GROSS WEIGHT AND EXCEEDING THE AFT AEROBATIC CENTER OF GRAVITY LIMIT. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE PILOT'S DECISION TO PERFORM ACROBATIC MANEUVERS WHICH RESULTED IN A INADVERTENT STALL FROM WHICH RECOVERY WAS NOT POSSIBLE.

Factual narrative

A CHRISTEN EAGLE II LOST CONTROL DURING ACROBATIC MANEUVERS, COLLIDED WITH COASTAL WATERS AND WAS NEVER RECOVERED. THE AIRPLANE WAS OBSERVED IN A STEEP CLIMB, DID A WING OVER, AND THEN ENTERED A SPIN. AFTER 4 TO 5 ROTATIONS IN THE SPIN THE AIRPLANE STARTED TO PULL OUT. THE AIRPLANE WAS THEN OBSERVED ROTATING AS IF IN A SPIN AND SIMULTANEOUSLY FLIPPING NOSE OVER UNTIL ITS TAIL STRUCK THE WATER. THE PILOT'S TOTAL DOCUMENTED AERONAUTICAL EXPERIENCE IN THE ACCIDENT AIRPLANE MAKE AND MODEL WAS 14 FLIGHT HOURS. INVESTIGATORS DETERMINED THAT THE AIRPLANE'S WEIGHT EXCEEDED THE MAXIMUM NORMAL AND AEROBATIC ALLOWABLE GROSS WEIGHT. THE CENTER OF GRAVITY (CG) EXCEEDED THE AFT LIMIT OF THE AIRPLANE'S AEROBATIC ALLOWABLE CG. THE AIRPLANE FLIGHT MANUAL PUBLISHES A WARNING WHICH STATES IN PART; 'PILOTS MUST TAKE WEIGHT AND BALANCE RESPONSIBILITIES SERIOUSLY. ALL AIRCRAFT MUST BE LOADED SO THAT THE AIRCRAFT CG WILL REMAIN WITHIN SAFE LIMITS AT ALL TIMES. ALL SPIN RECOVERY PROCEDURES DEPEND ON HAVING THE CG REMAIN WITHIN DESIGN LIMITS.' Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1992_LAX92LA365.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 ↗