LAX96LA143 · Cessna 172
Cessna 172 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Upland-Cable Airport (CCB) to Chino Airport (CNO)
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
- LAX96LA143
- 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 172
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N7044T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Upland-Cable Airport (CCB)To Chino Airport (CNO), Chino, 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
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Contamination
- Pilot in command › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment, attempted
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Upland, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he recently purchased the aircraft and was in the process of getting it into flyable condition so it could be moved to a maintenance facility at another airport. The pilot stated that after draining and refilling the fuel system several times, he believed that all water had been purged from the system. After a high speed taxi test the pilot decided to try one pattern circuit. Shortly after the takeoff, the engine quit completely. The aircraft had insufficient altitude to return to the airport and the pilot landed in a rock quarry. The airport manager said that the aircraft had been parked on the airport for 6 years, and to his knowledge had not flown in that time. The pilot told the fuel facility staff while he was purchasing 15 gallons of aviation gasoline in metal cans that he had drained a lot of water from the tanks and was still getting some. No records have been found of any annual inspection or other maintenance activity by aircraft mechanics on the aircraft since 1991. The FAA had not issued a ferry permit to move the aircraft.
Probable cause
fuel system contamination and the pilot's intentional operation of a known unairworthy aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX96LA143
- Event ID
- 20001208X05434
- Case number
- LAX96LA143
- 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: fa3cffa2a9d37d789046ab9b5967506fec70095bc79f385f9bd00edd43a6b093; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:50:51.199Z.