LAX97LA301 · Beech H35
Beech H35 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (KSBA) to Van Nuys Airport (KVNY)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97LA301
- 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
Beech H35
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 35
- 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
- N222M
- Operator
- Ascher Ward
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (KSBA), CATo Van Nuys Airport (KVNY), Van Nuys, CA
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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 pilot reported that after departure and at approximately 150 feet agl the engine lost power. He reported that he switched fuel tanks and attempted an unsuccessful restart. During a phone conversation with the pilot he stated that the engine seemed to go to idle power during the initial climb. He maneuvered to avoid a boat then ditched the aircraft in the ocean. The pilot and passenger exited the aircraft before it sank. About 12 days after the accident at the request of environmentalists the aircraft was raised by the pilot. The pilot stated that the aircraft was destroyed by the accident and the salt water and it still had fuel in the tanks. He disposed of the aircraft without notifying the Safety Board.
Probable cause
was a loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97LA301
- Event ID
- 20001208X08688
- Case number
- LAX97LA301
- 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 1997-08-25.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 113262b8ad0a8af8824174686da9eac0f2fa9eceae58aee809a89b7ecfbe2fe4; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:46:24.431Z.