ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 13573
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| Date: | Wednesday 30 August 1978 |
| Time: | 07:47 |
| Type: |  Piper PA-31-350 Chieftain |
| Owner/operator: | Las Vegas Airlines |
| Registration: | N44LV |
| MSN: | 31-7852099 |
| Year of manufacture: | 1978 |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 10 / Occupants: 10 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
| Category: | Accident |
| Location: | Las Vegas Municipal Airport, 5 miles NE of Las Vegas, Nevada -
 United States of America
|
| Phase: | Initial climb |
| Nature: | Passenger - Non-Scheduled/charter/Air Taxi |
| Departure airport: | Las Vegas Municipal Airport, Las Vegas, Nevada (LVS/KLVS) |
| Santa Ana, California (SNA/KSNA) | |
| Investigating agency: | NTSB |
| Confidence Rating: |  Accident investigation report completed and information captured |
At About 07:47 Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), on August 30 1978, Las Vegas Airlines Flight 44, a Piper PA-31-350 (N44LV), crashed in VFR conditions shortly after takeoff on a charter flight from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Santa Ana, California, with nine passengers and a pilot on board. After liftoff following a longer-than-normal ground roll, the aircraft pitched nose up, climbed steeply to about 400 feet above the ground, stalled, reversed course, and crashed 1,150 feet beyond and 650 feet to the right of the runway. There was no fire. All ten persons on board the aircraft were killed (pilot abd nine passengers - the passengers were all reportedly Australian nationals). According to a contemporary newspaper report ("Daily Globe, Atchison, Kansas August 30, 1978):
"10 DIE IN LAS VEGAS PLANE CRASH.
North Las Vegas, Nev. (AP) -- A twin-engine Las Vegas Airlines plane plunged to the ground shortly after taking off from the North Las Vegas Air Terminal today, killing all 10 persons aboard, authorities said.
The Piper Navajo crashed about 7:50 a.m., moments after it left the general aviation terminal northeast of Las Vegas Chief Deputy Clark County Coroner DICK MAYNE said the plane was on a flight to Santa Ana, Calif. According to the flight plan, MAYNE said, there were 10 persons aboard. A quick inspection said there were no survivors, he said. DON DONOHUE, a spokesman for the airline, said the plane had a pilot and nine passengers. They were not immediately identified.
Cause of the accident was under investigation.The blue, white and green plane lay on its belly in a dusty, sage-covered field. The back of the craft was broken, but the plane was relatively intact. It did not catch fire. Windows had been popped from the plane, and bodies of the passengers were visible, several of them slumped forward in their seats.
RICHARD JAMESON, a Las Vegas contractor and private pilot, was landing at the airport and said he saw the plane go down. The take-off seemed normal, JAMESON said, "It was climbing, but it violently and suddenly pitched to the right and crashed," he said. JAMESON said he saw "something falling with the airplane .... it was separate" but landed near the plane. It was not immediately known what the object was.
There were no skid marks, indicating the plane dropped straight down. The weather was clear, officials said. The airline has no scheduled flights, DONOHUE says, but flies on an on-call charter basis between Las Vegas and other Nevada and California points. "It was a high angle impact which means it was steep going in," DONOHUE said. "He (the pilot) took off on schedule, but he never got outside the airport boundary. We can't tell what happened."
The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the accident was the backed out elevator down-stop bolt that limited down elevator travel to 1/2 of normal 20 degree range, and made it impossible for the pilot to prevent a pitch up and stall after takeoff. The Board was not able to determine conclusively how down-stop bolt jam nut locking device came loose and allowed the stop bolt to back out.
Registration N44LV formally cancelled by the FAA on September 28, 1982
Accident investigation:
|
Sources:
1. NTSB Identification: Unknown at https://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/brief.aspx?ev_id=39700&key=0
2. FAA: http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?NNumbertxt=44LV
3. https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR7908.pdf
4. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19790025001.pdf
5. Flight International 21 October 1978 at https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1978/1978
6. Flight International 20 January 1979 at https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1979/1979
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 25-Feb-2008 12:00 | ASN archive | Added |
| 27-Jul-2010 11:01 | harro | Updated [Operator] |
| 10-May-2015 01:53 | Dr. John Smith | Updated [Time, Aircraft type, Location, Phase, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Narrative] |
| 25-Sep-2017 23:03 | Dr. John Smith | Updated [Source, Narrative] |
| 25-Sep-2017 23:05 | Dr. John Smith | Updated [Narrative] |
| 25-Sep-2017 23:06 | Dr. John Smith | Updated [Narrative] |
| 15-Feb-2020 19:47 | harro | Updated [Source, Accident report, ] |
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