Wings West Airlines

Beechcraft 99 Airliner

Wings West Airlines Flight 628, a commuter flight, departed Los Angeles for San Francisco, with scheduled en route stops at Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo. At 11:10, Flight 628 left the gate at San Luis Obispo. The weather at the time was essentially clear and the visibility was 15 miles. At 11:16, after taking off from runway 29, Flight 628 called the Los Angeles ARTCC and reported that it was climbing through 2,700 feet 'IFR to San Francisco.' At 11:17:23, the Los Angeles ARTCC’s radar controller cleared Flight 628 to the San Francisco airport, as filed, to climb and maintain 7,000 feet. At 11:17:38 the aircraft collided head-on with Rockwell Commander N112SM at 3,400 feet. This single-engined aircraft had departed Paso Robles Airport on a training flight with two pilots on board. Nll2SM was flying in visual meteorological conditions and under VFR in the vicinity of the San Luis Obispo Airport just before the collision.