LAX92LA127 · Bellanca 7ECA
Bellanca 7ECA · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Lompoc Airport (LPC) to P06 · Bullhead City, AZ
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX92LA127
- 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
Bellanca 7ECA
- Aircraft type
- Bellanca 7
- 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
- N4193Y
- Operator
- Chester Waite
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lompoc Airport (LPC), Lompoc, CATo P06 · Bullhead City, AZ
- 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; 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE ON A VFR CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT THE AIRPLANE SUSTAINED A TOTAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER DUE TO FUEL EXHAUSTION. DURING THE ENSUING EMERGENCY LANDING TO THE LEVEL, SAGE BRUSH COVERED, OPEN DESERT TERRAIN, THE PILOT FAILED TO MAINTAIN THE RECOMMENDED GLIDE AIRSPEED AND STALLED THE AIRPLANE. THE INVESTIGATION DETERMINED THAT ON THE EVENING PRIOR TO DEPARTING ON THE ACCIDENT FLIGHT THE PILOT FILLED THE FUEL TANKS WITH 19 GALLONS OF FUEL WHICH BROUGHT BOTH TANKS TO ABOUT 3/4 FULL. THE FUEL TANKS CONTAINED ABOUT 29.25 GALLONS OF FUEL. THE PILOT DID NOT VISUALLY CHECK THE FUEL TANK LEVEL PRIOR TO DEPARTING ON THE ACCIDENT FLIGHT. THE ENGINE, AIRFRAME AND ENGINE FUEL SYSTEM EXAMINATION DID NOT DISCLOSE ANY PREEXISTING MALFUNCTIONS OR FAILURES AND THE CAUSE OF THE FUEL EXHAUSTION COULD NOT BE DETERMINED. THE AIRPLANE'S OWNERS MANUAL INDICATES THAT THE FUEL ENDURANCE RANGE WITH 29.25 GALLONS OF FUEL SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABOUT 4 HOURS AND 52 MINUTES AT 75% POWER.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN AIRSPEED AND INADVERTENT STALL. CONTRIBUTING TO THIS ACCIDENT WAS ENGINE FUEL EXHAUSTION FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX92LA127
- Event ID
- 20001211X14141
- Case number
- LAX92LA127
- 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: a5301352fe3b646d3267c59c625a8a7636ae01221114400c1d6e3814997b9841; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:06:17.313Z.