LAX93LA271 · Piper PA-24-180
Piper PA-24-180 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93LA271
- 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-24-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N8058P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO), Santa Monica, 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
- 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 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
- Fuel system, selector/valve › Worn
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, annual inspection, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ENGINE SUSTAINED A LOSS OF POWER DURING CRUISE FLIGHT. THE PILOT EXECUTED THE REQUIRED EMERGENCY PROCEDURES, BUT WAS UNABLE TO RESTART THE ENGINE. THE PILOT ELECTED TO DITCH THE AIRPLANE INTO THE PACIFIC OCEAN ABOUT 2 MILES OFF SHORE. THE AIRPLANE SANK TO A 20 FT DEPTH AFTER THE PILOT WAS RESCUED. THE AIRPLANE WAS RETRIEVED WITH BOTH WINGS AND THEIR RESPECTIVE FUEL SYSTEMS INTACT. THE LEFT WING FUEL TANK WAS EMPTY AND THE RIGHT WING CONTAINED A MIXTURE OF ABOUT 15 GALLONS OF FUEL AND OCEAN WATER. THE FUEL SELECTOR VALVE HANDLE WAS SELECTED TO THE RIGHT TANK. THE FUEL SELECTOR VALVE, HOWEVER, WAS POSITIONED TOWARD THE LEFT TANK. EXAMINATION OF THE FUEL SELECTOR VALVE SHAFT REVEALED IT TO BE ROUNDED. AN ANNUAL INSPECTION HAD BEEN PERFORMED 16 FLIGHT HOURS BEFORE THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
the inadequate annual inspection by other maintenance personnel and the worn fuel selector valve shaft. Contributing to this accident was the loss of power due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93LA271
- Event ID
- 20001211X12939
- Case number
- LAX93LA271
- 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: 5b6c717ff70e39eeca4f6045afad76946f0eddf6e9d874becb405249d411a55c; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:53:37.618Z.