LAX94FA256 · Fouga CM 170
Fouga CM 170 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Paris-Le Bourget International Airport (LBG) to Porterville Municipal Airport (PTV)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94FA256
- 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
- 2 · 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
Fouga CM 170
- Aircraft type
- Fouga CM-170
- 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
- N344FM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Paris-Le Bourget International Airport (LBG)To Porterville Municipal Airport (PTV), Porterville, CA
- 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 (non-mechanical)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel contamination; Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Contamination, water
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vso), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A FORMER FRENCH AIRFORCE FOUGA CM 170 JET TRAINER LOST POWER IN BOTH ENGINES AND COLLIDED WITH TERRAIN AFTER TAKEOFF ABOUT 2,000 FEET FROM THE DEPARTURE END OF THE RUNWAY. THE PILOT REPORTED A LANDING GEAR PROBLEM AND REQUESTED CLEARANCE TO RETURN TO THE AIRPORT. WITNESSES REPORTED HEARING THE AIRPLANES'S JET ENGINES 'SPOOL DOWN' DURING THE TAKEOFF CLIMB ABOUT 600 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND (AGL). THE AIRPLANE DESCENDED TO ABOUT 300 FEET AGL WHEN THE LEFT WING DIPPED, FOLLOWED BY THE RIGHT WING DROPPING RAPIDLY. ANOTHER PILOT WHO WITNESSED THE ACCIDENT STATED THE AIRPLANE APPEARED TO STALL. THE AIRPLANE THEN DESCENDED UNCONTROLLED, COLLIDING WITH TERRAIN OFF THE AIRPORT BOUNDARY. THE AIRPLANE HAD BEEN RECENTLY IMPORTED TO THE UNITED STATES DISASSEMBLED AND DEFUELED. THE DESIGN OF THE AIRCRAFT FUEL SYSTEM DOES NOT ACCOMMODATE PREFLIGHT FUEL SAMPLING FROM THE RUBBER BLADDER FUEL CELLS IN THE FUSELAGE. WATER AND SMALL PARTICLES WERE OBSERVED IN A FUEL SAMPLE DRAINED FROM THE FUEL LINES AFTER THE ACCIDENT. THE PILOT'S LANDING GEAR WARNING LIGHT ILLUMINATES ANY TIME ENGINE RPM DROPS BELOW 18,000 RPM AND ANY ONE OF THE THREE LANDING GEAR IS RETRACTED.
Probable cause
A loss of power to both engines due to fuel contamination and, the pilot-in-command's failure to maintain an adequate airspeed during the subsequent emergency, which resulted in an inadvertent stall. Factors in the accident were: 1) the manufacturer's inadequate design of the airplane's fuel system, which does not facilitate fuel sampling during preflight inspections or routine normal maintenance; 2) the lack of a fuel drain valve in the fuel system for fuel sampling purposes.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94FA256
- Event ID
- 20001206X01550
- Case number
- LAX94FA256
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c4297410bcbaffb0ad869bb13f5a8cb5ba0aa6eb33cc6ab95c57882e9e9565b6; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:07:18.166Z.