LAX93LA264 · Piper PA-38-112
Piper PA-38-112 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Redding Municipal Airport (RDD) to Van Nuys Airport (VNY)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93LA264
- 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
Piper PA-38-112
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-38
- 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
- N9539T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Redding Municipal Airport (RDD), Redding, CATo Van Nuys Airport (VNY), 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 · 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
- 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 exhaustion
- 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 › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Refueling, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT BOTH FUEL TANKS WERE FILLED TO CAPACITY JUST PRIOR TO DEPARTURE ON THE PLANNED 4 HR FLIGHT. THE PILOT SAID THE FLIGHT MANUAL FOR THE AIRCRAFT LISTED A 5 HR RANGE ON THE AIRCRAFT AND THAT SHE PLANNED HER FLIGHT TIME AT 4 HRS. THE PILOT SAID THAT ABOUT 3 HRS AND 50 MIN INTO THE FLIGHT THE ENGINE QUIT. THE PILOT NOTED THAT WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF POINT MUGU RADAR APPROACH CONTROL SHE WAS ABLE TO DESCEND BELOW THE BROKEN CLOUD LAYER AND LAND ON A ROAD. THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH A CULVERT DURING THE ROLL OUT. A REVIEW OF THE ATC TAPES AT THE REDDING, CALIFORNIA, FAA ATCT REVEALED THAT THE AIRCRAFT RECEIVED A TAKEOFF CLEARANCE AT 1535 HOURS. THE LAST RADIO CONTACT WITH THE AIRCRAFT WAS RECORDED BY THE ATC FACILITY AT POINT MUGU NAVAL AIR STATION AT 1958 HOURS. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRCRAFT AT THE ACCIDENT SITE REVEALED ONLY RESIDUAL FUEL IN THE FUEL SYSTEM. AFTER RETRIEVAL FROM THE ACCIDENT SITE, THE ENGINE AND FUEL SYSTEM WERE EXAMINED WITH NO DISCREPANCIES FOUND.
Probable cause
FUEL EXHAUSTION DUE TO THE INADEQUATE PREFLIGHT FUEL CONSUMPTION PLANNING, THE INADEQUATE EN ROUTE FUEL CONSUMPTION CALCULATIONS, AND THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO STOP EN ROUTE FOR FUEL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93LA264
- Event ID
- 20001211X12660
- Case number
- LAX93LA264
- 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 1993-06-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: dbacd9665e0e4baf8a6d603b3167f700cab1230ec350cdd67cdf6b01a51e45b0; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:56:49.277Z.