LAX97LA078 · Cessna TU206G
Cessna TU206G · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Fullerton Municipal Airport (FUL) to Mammoth Yosemite Airport (MMH)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97LA078
- 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 TU206G
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- N756UP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fullerton Municipal Airport (FUL), Fullerton, CATo Mammoth Yosemite Airport (MMH)
- 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 final
- 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/mush
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vso), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Lowering of flaps, improper
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that about 40 miles south of the airport the fuel pressure dropped and he turned on the auxiliary fuel pump and continued the descent for landing. On final approach the aircraft was low and he added throttle, with no response. The pilot noted that the stall warning was sounding and he lowered the nose slightly to prevent a stall. The aircraft landed hard on the runway threshold and collapsed the nose gear. The pilot told responding police officers that at 100 feet agl on final the engine lost power and a high rate of descent developed. He further told the responding officers that he 'put on full flaps to slow his free fall,' and when that did not work, he lowered the nose to regain speed. The aircraft collided with the runway on the nose gear, collapsing it, and damaging the propeller. The Safety Board was notified of the accident 2 weeks after the occurrence, and after the aircraft had been moved and disassembled. The total fuel quantity and the distribution among the tanks was not ascertained. The Safety Board located the aircraft at the salvage facility who transported it from the accident site. The engine was started and successfully test run using the airframe systems.
Probable cause
The loss of power for undetermined reasons, and the pilot's inappropriate use of flaps and his failure to maintain an adequate airspeed during the subsequent landing attempt.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97LA078
- Event ID
- 20001208X07196
- Case number
- LAX97LA078
- 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: e7286dd8a696e770eef2f6cee4ab0f80053b765506bfeb1d2b613e8d4a7d2cab; retrieved 2026-09-22T20:39:29.224Z.