North American T28C accident near Sherman Oaks, California, May 24, 2003

The NTSB's narrative final · quoted from the NTSB record

On a standard instrument departure procedure, the airplane came out of the clouds in a steep, nose down, inverted attitude and collided with terrain. The weather at the departure airport was 1,700-foot overcast with the tops ranging from about 4,000 to 4,500 feet. The mode C altitude reporting system on board the airplane initially was reporting 1,400 msl, but the pilot reported climbing out of 2,300 msl. Air traffic control made numerous queries about the altitude anomalies and repeatedly asked the pilot to recycle the transponder. In this aircraft, the transponder control head was mounted on the lower right side avionics rail abeam the pilot's seat back. The pilot would have to look down, to the right, and aft to alter any settings on the transponder during flight. The airplane was climbing on a southeasterly course. After a minute ATC issued a left turn to 040 degrees. The pilot acknowledged the course change, but the recorded radar track continued in a southeasterly direction until its last recorded point. Twenty-three seconds after the pilot acknowledged the course change and reported leaving 3,000 feet, he asked ATC if it was a left or right turn to 040. ATC instructed the pilot to turn off the transponder's mode C function. There were no further recorded transmissions from the pilot. The last recorded mode C data occurred 17 seconds after the pilot's last transmission. The mode C altitude reports from the airplane varied from 1,300 feet to a high of 4,100 feet, and erratically fluctuated between those values. The airplane came out of the clouds in a steep, nose down, inverted position, and heading in a northeasterly direction. The wreckage was located north of the last recorded radar position.

The complete narrative as the NTSB published it. The NTSB's docket holds the report as a PDF and any photographs, statements and other documents from the investigation.