LAX99LA067 · Cessna 140
Cessna 140 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Santa Paula Airport (SZP) to Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99LA067
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 140
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 140
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N3585V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Paula Airport (SZP), Santa Paula, CATo Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Initial climb
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Ignition system, magneto › Shorted
- Ignition system, magneto › Timing improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Santa Barbara, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was performing touch-and-go landings and had just lifted off to climb on the runway heading when the engine abruptly lost power at 150 feet above ground level. The pilot attempted to execute a turn and lower the nose to maintain airspeed. The engine was faltering and producing partial power, then cycling and producing no power. The pilot did not have sufficient altitude to make the runway and the airplane nosed over and came to rest in a marsh located near the runway. Examination of the engine found that the right magneto to engine timing was 17 degrees before top dead center of cylinder number one. The Lycoming engine data plate specifies that the engine to magneto timing be set at 25 degrees. The left magneto was inoperative and further investigation found that the primary coil circuit was internally shorted. Review of the maintenance records disclosed that the last annual inspection was accomplished on May 5, 1998, about 40 hours prior to the accident. No entries were found detailing maintenance on the magnetos after the annual.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to an internal left magneto coil primary circuit short. Factors were insufficient altitude and inadequate terrain to make an emergency landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99LA067
- Event ID
- 20001204X00075
- Case number
- LAX99LA067
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1999-01-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b9d65ad7bc582b82b52c47d082d51d7651d63ccccc94093403d603cd7a933dbf; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:37:21.238Z.