LAX98LA040 · Aero Commander 200D
Aero Commander 200D · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Yuba County Airport (MYV) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98LA040
- 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
Aero Commander 200D
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander 200
- 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
- N2910T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Yuba County Airport (MYV), Marysville, CATo 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
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, not verified
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The aircraft's engine lost power on final approach and the aircraft collided with terrain short of the landing runway. The pilot stated that due to approaching inclement weather he abbreviated the preflight inspection of the aircraft. Specifically, he did not visually examine the fuel level in the tanks. The flight was conducted on the left tank, which the fuel gage indicated full at takeoff. During the before landing checklist the left gage still read 1/4 tank. On final approach, about 200 feet altitude, the engine stopped and there was insufficient time to switch tanks and restart the engine before impacting the ground short of the runway. The pilot reported that after the accident a visual check of the left tank showed it to be empty, and yet the fuel gage read 1/4. The pilot said that he knew that on previous occasions the fuel gage had been inaccurate and that he made note of it to the maintenance facility performing the just completed annual inspection. After the accident the left main tank contained 1 cup of fuel, the right main tank contained 1 gallon of fuel, the left auxiliary tank was nearly full, and the right auxiliary tank, which had leaked after the accident, contained 5 gallons of fuel.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to verify that there was an adequate supply of fuel in the selected fuel tank prior to takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98LA040
- Event ID
- 20001208X09206
- Case number
- LAX98LA040
- 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: c8c4c6eddce27dbdfa048afb07353e44a7fcbc995a09c4e367ca5202bf38bb2d; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:11:52.547Z.