LAX95LA054 · Cessna 120
Cessna 120 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Zamperini Field (TOA) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA054
- 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 120
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 120
- 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
- N89885
- Operator
- William R. Wood · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Zamperini Field (TOA), CATo not recorded
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Carburetor heat, air box › Blocked(total)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT SAID HE WAS PERFORMING TOUCH-AND-GO PATTERN OPERATIONS AND THE ENGINE LOST POWER SHORTLY AFTER LIFT-OFF ON RUNWAY 29R. THE PILOT LANDED ON THE RUNWAY, BUT HAD INSUFFICIENT PAVEMENT REMAINING TO STOP THE AIRCRAFT. THE AIRCRAFT OVERRAN THE END OF THE RUNWAY AND NOSED OVER WHEN SOFT, RECENTLY PLOWED DIRT WAS ENCOUNTERED. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HE EXAMINED THE ENGINE COMPARTMENT AND FOUND THE DUCT HOSE FROM THE HEAT BOX TO THE CARBURETOR CRIMPED, BLOCKING HOT AIR FLOW TO THE CARBURETOR. THE ENGINE WAS EXAMINED WITH NO DISCREPANCIES NOTED. THE PILOT SUSPECTED CARBURETOR ICE AS THE CAUSE OF THE ENGINE POWER LOSS. THE TEMPERATURE AND DEW POINT AT THE AIRPORT WERE 58 AND 51 DEGREES, RESPECTIVELY. REVIEW OF A CARBURETOR ICING PROBABILITY CHART REVEALED THAT THE NOTED TEMPERATURES WERE WITHIN AN AREA OF THE CHART ANNOTATED 'SERIOUS ICING -- CRUISE OR CLIMB POWER.'
Probable cause
A blockage in the carburetor heat air duct which limited the effectiveness of the system's ability to prevent the formation of carburetor ice and resulted in a loss of power. A factor in the accident was the soft nature of the recently plowed ground in the runway overrun area.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA054
- Event ID
- 20001206X02749
- Case number
- LAX95LA054
- 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: 0b954c5cdb583b51ebb4646fe75438125b63217017e04b24b3eebff84e59ad1a; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:22:59.525Z.