LAX98LA038 · Adams SONERAI II
Adams SONERAI II · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Triangle Airpark (AZ50) to North Las Vegas Airport (VGT)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98LA038
- 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
- 1 · 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
Adams SONERAI II
- Aircraft type
- Adams SONERAI
- 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
- N27KF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Triangle Airpark (AZ50), TRIANGLE AIRPOR, AZTo North Las Vegas Airport (VGT), Las Vegas, NV
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 · Estimated position: the centre of Kingman, AZ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The aircraft was part of a flight of three which flew into the airport earlier in the day. After visiting with friends in the nearby trailer park, the three aircraft were departing for the return to Las Vegas. The accident aircraft was the middle one of the three in the takeoff sequence. The pilot of the last aircraft reported that accident aircraft was in the takeoff initial climb when it appeared to loose power and enter a descent toward the desert. The aircraft touched down and then nosed over in the dirt. The accident site, which is located about 1 mile northwest of the airport, is predominantly level, although several small washes traverse the area in a direction perpendicular to the aircraft's direction of travel. The main landing gear was found to have contacted the northern lip of a wash and nosed over. The airframe and engine were examined following recovery of the wreckage. Control system continuity was established. The fuel selector valve was found in the off position. An estimated 12 gallons of automotive fuel was in the single fuselage fuel tank. No preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures were identified during a complete disassembly of the engine, magnetos, and carburetor, or in the fuel system examination.
Probable cause
The complete loss of engine power for undetermined reasons. A factor in the accident was the rough nature of the landing site terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98LA038
- Event ID
- 20001208X09205
- Case number
- LAX98LA038
- 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: 3bdd73c9bd15a05c12608d76982ebdee8d17f53bff938f701aa50700a478c0a1; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:45:30.205Z.