LAX97LA011 · Richards Lancair IVP
Richards Lancair IVP · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Cunnamulla Airport (CMA) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97LA011
- 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
Richards Lancair IVP
- Aircraft type
- Richards Lancair IVP
- 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
- N477RM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cunnamulla Airport (CMA)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
- En route · cruise
- 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 (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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The experimental airplane had been built from a kit by the pilot and flown about 12 flight hours since completion. Thirty-two gallons of fuel were onboard at the last takeoff, all of which was in the left tank. The engine lost total power at 4,500 feet msl with the fuel selector valve in the left tank position, and the pilot was unable to restart the engine. The engine was placed in a test cell with the fuel supply being routed to the engine through the aircraft's fuel selector valve. The engine started and developed only partial power. The No. 6 cylinder and piston exhibited heavy scorching, and after changing the cylinder and piston the engine operated to full power. The aircraft's fuel selector valve had been modified from the manufacturer's original configuration by machining to the valve's stem to incorporate a both position. The fuel selector was tested on a flow bench. Air bubbles were observed through the vapor ejector line when the line opposite the selected fuel tank was uncapped, simulating the empty right fuel tank. It was noted that as the air bubbles increased the fuel flow decreased from 253 lbs/hr to 235 lbs/hr. The engine requires 118 lbs/hr to operate at 75 percent power.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97LA011
- Event ID
- 20001208X06921
- Case number
- LAX97LA011
- 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: 2f828270bf75e4638addd089644f108cc3205118362dcec241b3df35b75a2ac8; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:24:33.022Z.