LAX96LA266 · Cessna 150J
Tom King Aerial Enterprises Cessna 150J · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Chino Airport (CNO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX96LA266
- 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 150J
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- 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
- N50814
- Operator
- Tom King Aerial Enterprises
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chino Airport (CNO)To 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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 starvation
- 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 › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
- Pilot in command › Lowering of flaps, premature
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The aircraft was modified with a 180-hp Lycoming O-360 engine and a Cessna 172 fuel system (tanks, fuel vents, and fuel selector valve.) Each wing tank holds 20 usable gallons; total fuel capacity 40 gallons. The pilot this was the first flight in this aircraft, and her first solo banner tow flight. Her prior flight experience was gained primarily in a Cessna 210 and North American T-28. The pilot reported that she had returned to the airport after a 3-hour mission and entered the traffic pattern to drop the banner. The engine quit on downwind. The pilot dropped the banner and attempted to make the runway, but landed about 30 feet short in the dirt and nosed over in soft soil. The pilot stated that following the engine failure she lowered full flaps. The pilot reported that she had been feeding off the right tank during the last 40 minutes or so of the flight and may have forgotten to reposition the selector to the both position before entering the traffic pattern and inadvertently ran one tank dry. The pilot noted that this aircraft has a fuel system significantly different from the other banner towing aircraft in the operator's fleet that she flew in during the dual banner towing training flights. She said she repeatedly asked the operator for a manual on the aircraft to learn the system differences but was told that one was not available. An FAA inspector examined the aircraft and found no fuel in the right tank and about 13 gallons in the left. An engine test was subsequently run using the aircrafts fuel and ignition systems; the engine started on the first attempt and ran normally.
Probable cause
Fuel starvation due to the pilot's failure to monitor and correctly configure the fuel system for landing prior to entering the traffic pattern, and the pilot's premature lowering of full flaps which led to the runway undershoot. A factor in the accident was the pilot's lack of experience in the type of operation and in this highly modified aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX96LA266
- Event ID
- 20001208X06280
- Case number
- LAX96LA266
- 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: 2b51a8f41235427d8af6f76ff8196637a724484a36aa210fc5ef6831f4bd3f16; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:40:11.667Z.