LAX98LA254 · Girgen KITFOX II
Girgen KITFOX II · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) while maneuvering
From Phoenix, AZ to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98LA254
- 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
Girgen KITFOX II
- Aircraft type
- Girgen KITFOX
- 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
- N62KF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix, AZTo 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
- Maneuvering
- 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)
- 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
- Engine assembly, valve, intake › Fractured
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that the purpose of the flight was to fly to a different airport with another aircraft to have coffee. He stated that after completing a 360-degree turn to wait for the other aircraft, the engine lost power. He chose an open dirt field to make the emergency landing. After touchdown the landing gear was sheared off after colliding with a dirt berm. The pilot stated that all engine instruments were indicating normal and no discrepancies were noted. According to the manufacturer of the engine, this engine had been installed on a 1989 Ski-Doo Mach 1 snowmobile, which had been involved in an accident. The engine manufacturer further stated that this particular model was not originally intended for use in an aircraft. The owner inspected the engine following purchase and prior to installation in the airframe. No discrepancies noted during the preinstallation inspection. Examination of the engine by the owner following the accident revealed that the rotary valve had broken.
Probable cause
An engine failure due to a broken rotary valve for unknown reasons. Contributing factors to the accident was an inadequate inspection by the owner of a previously damaged engine during maintenance overhaul prior to installation in the airframe.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98LA254
- Event ID
- 20001211X10373
- Case number
- LAX98LA254
- 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: 374c6a4cb4f8794aeff5a2485cc1a613f465d3c6715462450a07e10eeb1db70c; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:49:34.875Z.