California Aviation Accident Lawyer

When the Cause Is Still Unknown: What the Official Record of California Aviation Accidents Shows

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is the federal agency that investigates civil aviation accidents. It usually issues a preliminary report first, an early factual summary the NTSB marks as subject to change. A final report follows later and often states a probable cause, the NTSB's own conclusion about why the accident happened. Until then, no official cause exists.

The cases this site covers all happen in California: commercial airline flights, charter (Part 135) flights, private and small aircraft, helicopters, sightseeing tours, air ambulance transports, and flight school and experimental aircraft flights.

One recent example is NTSB accident number WPR26FA345. The NTSB's Aviation Investigation Preliminary Report records the following:

• The accident happened on September 15, 2026, near Chatsworth, California.
• The aircraft was a Eurocopter AS 350 B2 helicopter, and it was destroyed.
• The report lists the injuries as 3 fatal and 1 minor. The pilot, a passenger and one person on the ground died.
• The flight was operated under Part 91 as an electronic news gathering flight.

The report states: "This information is preliminary and subject to change." It contains no probable cause, and nothing in it assigns fault. This is one example from the official record, not a count of California accidents or a statistic.

For an injured person or a family, this means the official answer to "why" may not arrive for some time, while California's deadlines keep running. A person in this position may note the NTSB accident number, follow whether a final report has been issued, and keep track of what the preliminary report does and does not say.

Why Federal and California Law Both Shape an Aviation Accident Claim

Two separate bodies of law apply to an aviation accident in California, and each answers different questions.

The federal layer. Federal aviation law sets the framework for how aircraft are certificated and how flights are operated. The Chatsworth report shows this: it records which part of the federal regulations the flight was conducted under. Federal law also governs the NTSB investigation and the record it produces.

The state layer. California law decides the civil claim itself: the duty of care, how fault is shared, when a lawsuit must be filed, who may sue after a death, and how damages are divided among defendants. Other states have different rules, which is why the site's page on Texas aviation accident law reads differently from this one.

The two layers meet in one federal statute that matters to families. Under 49 U.S.C. § 1154(b):

"No part of a report of the Board, related to an accident or an investigation of an accident, may be admitted into evidence or used in a civil action for damages resulting from a matter mentioned in the report."

The same rule applies to every airline, charter and private flight; the site's page on American Airlines NTSB records discusses it in that setting. The NTSB's work can help people understand what happened, but a California damages claim has to be built on other evidence. Someone weighing a claim may ask which records exist outside the NTSB report, and which California rules apply to the parties involved.

Who May Be Responsible for Your Injuries Under California Law

Responsibility in an aviation case depends on who controlled what. Depending on the facts, the parties whose conduct may be examined include:

• the aircraft operator
• maintenance providers
• the manufacturers of the aircraft or its components
• air carriers
• charter (Part 135) operators, which carry passengers or cargo for hire on demand
• in some cases, a government entity

Being on this list does not mean a party did anything wrong.

The duty that applies to each comes from Civil Code section 1714(a). It makes everyone responsible for willful acts and also "for an injury occasioned to another by his or her want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his or her property or person." The exception is an injury the injured person brought on themselves, willfully or through their own lack of ordinary care.

When more than one party is involved, Civil Code section 1431.2(a) shapes how losses are divided in actions for personal injury, property damage or wrongful death based on principles of comparative fault. For an injured person or a family, this means no single defendant answers for everyone's share of non-economic damages: each defendant's liability for them is "several only and shall not be joint," and each pays only in direct proportion to its own percentage of fault. That is why identifying every party that may share fault can matter.

A public entity adds an extra first step. Under Government Code section 945.4, generally no suit for money or damages may be brought against a public entity until a written claim has been presented to it and acted upon by the board or deemed rejected. The timing is covered in the deadlines section below.

If you are trying to sort out who may be involved, it can help to list who operated, maintained, built and owned the aircraft, and whether any government entity played a role.

What Your California Aviation Injury Claim Has to Show

If you were hurt, or lost a family member, a negligence claim under section 1714(a) would generally turn on four questions about the party being examined:

1. Did that party owe you a duty of ordinary care?
2. Did it fall short of that care?
3. Did that shortfall cause the injury?
4. What harm resulted?

An injury, even a death, does not by itself prove that anyone was at fault, so each answer depends on the facts and evidence.

Some claims allege that a part or system was defective. This kind of claim, called product liability, asks whether a defect existed and whether it caused the harm. A crash is not proof of a defect.

California's rule on shared fault comes from a court decision, not a statute. In Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804, the Supreme Court of California replaced the all-or-nothing rule of contributory negligence with comparative negligence, under which liability is assigned in direct proportion to the amount of negligence of each of the parties. For an injured passenger or a family, a share of fault assigned to the injured person is weighed against everyone else's share. It is not an automatic bar to the claim.

A separate rule applies to land used for recreation. Under Civil Code section 846(a), an owner of an interest in real property generally "owes no duty of care to keep the premises safe for entry or use by others for any recreational purpose," and owes no duty to warn people who enter for that purpose. Section 846(d) says this does not limit liability that otherwise exists in several situations, including a "willful or malicious failure to guard or warn against a dangerous condition, use, structure or activity." Whether this rule affects a particular landing area or flight depends on the facts.

A person weighing a claim may think about which of the four questions the available records already speak to, and which remain open while the investigation continues.

Evidence That Often Matters in California Aviation Cases

Because section 1154(b) keeps NTSB reports out of civil damages cases, other records carry the weight of the claim. These often include:

• the NTSB's investigation records, as a guide to what was examined
• FAA certification records
• air traffic control communications
• the aircraft's maintenance logs
• the operator's records
• medical records
• witness accounts
• the physical wreckage

The Chatsworth report shows how varied these sources can be. The NTSB describes ADS-B tracking data, a video recorded onboard, security camera footage from nearby buildings, and the wreckage, which was moved to a secure facility for further examination.

Federal law also limits access to some recordings. Under 49 U.S.C. § 1154(a), a party in a court case generally may not use discovery, the pretrial exchange of evidence, to obtain a cockpit recorder recording, or parts of a transcript or still images the NTSB has not made public. The exception is when a court reviews the material privately and decides it is necessary for a fair trial. Any material a court allows comes with a protective order limiting its use to that case.

If you were hurt, the records that usually matter on your side are medical records, photos and video, incident reports, and the names of people who saw what happened. Families often gather the same kinds of records after a death.

Filing Deadlines and the Rules That Can Shorten Them

California's general limitation period comes from Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. It allows two years for an action for "injury to, or for the death of, an individual caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another."

Exposure to hazardous materials. Under Code of Civil Procedure section 340.8(a), a claim based on exposure to a hazardous material or toxic substance must start no later than the later of:

• two years from the date of injury, or
• two years after the plaintiff becomes aware, or reasonably should have become aware, of the injury, its physical cause, and enough facts to suspect it was caused or contributed to by another's wrongful act.

Section 340.8(b) sets a similar two-date rule for wrongful death based on that kind of exposure.

Minors and people lacking legal capacity. Under Code of Civil Procedure section 352(a), if the person entitled to sue was a minor or lacked the legal capacity to make decisions when the claim arose, that time is not counted. Section 352(b) says this pause does not apply to an action against a public entity or public employee on a claim that must first be presented to the entity.

Claims against public entities. Here the timeline is shorter. Under Government Code section 911.2(a), a claim for death or injury to a person must be presented no later than six months after the claim arises. After that, Government Code section 945.6(a) generally sets the time to sue:

• If written notice is given under section 913, the suit must be filed within six months after that notice is delivered or mailed.
• If no such notice is given, the suit must be filed within two years from when the claim arose.

These rules can overlap in one case, especially when a public entity and private parties are both involved. A conversation with our attorney about which deadlines may apply can help sort out how they fit together for a particular accident.

Damages California Law May Allow

California law separates damages into categories. Section 1431.2(a) names non-economic damages, losses not measured by bills, such as pain and suffering and loss of companionship (often called loss of consortium). These are distinct from economic losses such as medical expenses, lost earnings and the cost of future care. For an injured person or a family, both kinds of loss may be part of the picture, and whether any category applies depends on the facts, the parties and the evidence.

When a crash takes a life, the family's first question is often who is allowed to bring a claim. Under Code of Civil Procedure section 377.60, the family members the statute lists may bring a wrongful death claim (a claim for a death caused by another's wrongful act or neglect) themselves, or the decedent's personal representative may bring it on their behalf. Under subdivision (a), they include:

• the surviving spouse or domestic partner
• the decedent's children
• the issue (descendants) of deceased children
• if there is no surviving issue, the people who would inherit the decedent's property by intestate succession (inheritance without a will)
• if the parents would be entitled to sue but have died, the decedent's legal guardians

When several defendants share fault, section 1431.2(a) means each answers for non-economic damages only in proportion to its own percentage of fault. A family may weigh who among them falls within the statute's list, and keep records of medical bills, lost earnings and other losses as they arise.