LAX94LA298 · Grumman AA-1B
Paradise Aviation Grumman AA-1B · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From L66 · CA to L66 · CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94LA298
- 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
Grumman AA-1B
- Aircraft type
- Grumman AA-1
- 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
- N8972L
- Operator
- Paradise Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From L66 · CATo L66 · 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
- Partial 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, DURING INITIAL CLIMB HE EXPERIENCED A PARTIAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER. THE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO MANEUVER THE AIRPLANE BACK TOWARD THE AIRPORT. INSUFFICIENT ENGINE POWER WAS PRODUCED TO SUSTAIN FLIGHT, AND THE AIRPLANE DESCENDED INTO ROUGH TERRAIN ABOUT 2 MILES FROM THE RUNWAY. FOLLOWING THE ACCIDENT, THE ENGINE WAS TEST RUN. THE ENGINE RAN ROUGH WITH THE MIXTURE CONTROL IN THE RICH POSITION, AND IT SMOOTHED OUT WHEN THE MIXTURE WAS PLACED IN THE LEAN POSITION. NO BLOCKAGES WERE NOTED IN THE ENGINE'S INDUCTION SYSTEM. THE CARBURETOR WAS VISUALLY INSPECTED AND NO ABNORMALITIES WERE FOUND. THE THROTTLE AND MIXTURE CONTROL LINKAGES WERE REPORTED TO BE CORRECTLY INSTALLED.
Probable cause
AN UNDETERMINED PARTIAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94LA298
- Event ID
- 20001206X01790
- Case number
- LAX94LA298
- 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 1994-07-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 88381bd12686b498aabfeb5ebd5bc1223ba046d20591e0f1f62ce0394624aa6d; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:33:23.417Z.