LAX97LA031 · Rainey RANS S-12
Rainey RANS S-12 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From 0AZ1 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97LA031
- 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
Rainey RANS S-12
- Aircraft type
- Rainey RANS S-12
- Category
- Ultralight
- 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
- N95HS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 0AZ1To 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 · climb to 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)
- 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
- Ignition system, ignition coil › Failure, total
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Tucson, AZ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The 2 seat, ultralight type, homebuilt aircraft was observed climbing out after takeoff toward the area of the accident site. Ground witnesses stated that they heard the high pitched hum of the engine, which went completely silent and was followed by a bang or thud; however, they did not see the aircraft crash. An FAA inspector examined the aircraft and reported that it impacted the ground in a near vertical nose down descent and that the empennage was torsionally twisted. No broken or disturbed vegetation, or other ground scars were observed beyond the immediate area of the wreckage. No preimpact mechanical problem was noted with the airframe or flight control system. The engine was examined by a power plant mechanic, who was familiar with the Rotax engine. He reported that both spark plugs had no spark due to a broken wire in the ignition coil.
Probable cause
a broken wire in the ignition coil, which resulted in a loss of engine power; and failure of the pilot to maintain adequate airspeed, which resulted in a stall/spin and uncontrolled collision with the terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97LA031
- Event ID
- 20001208X07063
- Case number
- LAX97LA031
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1996-11-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 310630d200a73ee648cd126936e12941bdebdc5dd0640635e52c3a1499be3114; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:08:35.356Z.