LAX94LA051 · de Havilland DHC-1B-2
de Havilland DHC-1B-2 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94LA051
- 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
de Havilland DHC-1B-2
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland DHC-1
- 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
- N42597
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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 · climb to 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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; Stall
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Fuel injection control/system › Contamination
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Maintenance, 100-hour inspection, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRLINE TRANSPORT PILOT, WHO IS ALSO AN AIRFRAME AND POWERPLANT MECHANIC, WAS CONDUCTING A LOCAL AREA MAINTENANCE TEST FLIGHT. THE ENGINE BEGAN MISFIRING SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF. THE PILOT EXECUTED A RIGHT TURN TO RETURN TO THE AIRPORT, BUT INADVERTENTLY STALLED THE AIRPLANE. THE AIRPLANE NOSED DOWN SHARPLY AND CRASHED. EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE FUEL SYSTEM REVEALED THAT THE FUEL INLET PASSAGE WAS CLOGGED WITH AN UNIDENTIFIED BLACK, SPONGE-LIKE MATERIAL. THIS CONDITION PREVENTED FUEL FROM GETTING TO THE FUEL INJECTOR ASSEMBLY RESULTING IN FUEL STARVATION. ALSO, TWO OF THE FUEL INJECTOR NOZZLE SCREENS WERE OBSTRUCTED; THE REMAINING SCREENS WERE PARTIALLY OBSTRUCTED. A FIXED-BASE OPERATOR AND THE REGISTERED OWNER REPORTED THAT THE FUEL NOZZLES HAD RECURRING CLOGGING. THE PILOT WAS COMPLETING A 100-HOUR INSPECTION AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT. THE ENGINE EXAMINATION DISCLOSED EXTENSIVE FRETTING OF BOTH CRANKCASE HALVES AND ALL OF THE CYLINDERS BASES. THE ENGINE EXAMINATION, HOWEVER, DID NOT REVEAL ANY ABNORMALITIES WHICH WOULD HAVE PREVENTED THE ENGINE FROM PRODUCING POWER.
Probable cause
Were the fuel injection line contamination resulting in fuel starvation; the pilot's inadequate 100-hour inspection; the pilot's improper decision to return to the airport at a low altitude; and his failure to maintain the proper airspeed which resulted in a stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94LA051
- Event ID
- 20001211X13760
- Case number
- LAX94LA051
- 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: 2911912429d7211a833e5e76afcb36b5b23658f2931251d3a6200113e9eaf63d; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:18:58.630Z.