LAX96LA262 · Ryan ST3KR
Ryan ST3KR · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Riverside Municipal Airport (RAL) to Santa Paula Airport (SZP)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX96LA262
- 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
Ryan ST3KR
- Aircraft type
- Ryan ST3
- 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
- N57017
- Operator
- Richard L. Wagner · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Riverside Municipal Airport (RAL), Riverside, CATo Santa Paula Airport (SZP)
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses reported that as the 1942 vintage airplane approached runway 22 for landing its engine made unusual sputtering sounds. The airplane passed between 300 and 500 feet over the approach end of the runway while in a left descending turn. The bank angle increased, and the airplane spun into the ground about 150 yards from the runway. Three months earlier, restoration work had been completed which included replacing parts, recovering the airframe, and installation of an overhauled engine. By the accident date, the pilot/owner had flown the airplane for a total of 5.0 hours. The entire airplane was located at the crash site, and no evidence of preimpact airframe system failures was observed. Fuel was observed dripping out of the front end of the fuselage. Examination of the impact damaged airframe, engine and accessories including the carburetor, magnetos, propeller, oil and fuel screens, did not reveal evidence of preimpact failures or malfunctions.
Probable cause
a partial loss of engine power for undetermined reasons and the pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane while maneuvering toward the runway following the power loss.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX96LA262
- Event ID
- 20001208X06276
- Case number
- LAX96LA262
- 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: 1dbf16724da8d70f20af06db192f30acfda18a2daaa62c9b8e5565df74f6ceb8; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:17:31.614Z.