LAX92LA361 · Piper J3C-65
West Valley Flying Club Piper J3C-65 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Palo Alto Airport (PAO) to Palo Alto Airport (PAO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX92LA361
- 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 J3C-65
- Aircraft type
- Piper J3
- 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
- N707CW
- Operator
- West Valley Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palo Alto Airport (PAO), Palo Alto, CATo Palo Alto Airport (PAO)
- 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)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Carburetor heat, not used
- Weather condition › Carburetor icing conditions
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Morgan Hill, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT SAID HE WAS FLYING AROUND THE LOCAL HILLS SIGHTSEEING WITH HIS PASSENGER. NEAR THE ACCIDENT SITE THE PILOT PERFORMED SEVERAL TURNS AROUND A SMALL DIRT AIRSTRIP LOOKING AT IT, THEN DEPARTED TO THE WEST. JUST AS THE AIRCRAFT CLEARED A RIDGE LINE HE PERCEIVED A LOSS OF AIRSPEED. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE MANIPULATED THE THROTTLE AND CARBURETOR HEAT CONTROLS BUT THE ENGINE DID NOT RESPOND. THE PILOT TURNED AROUND AND ATTEMPTED TO RECROSS THE RIDGE LINE BACK TOWARD THE SMALL DIRT AIRSTRIP, HOWEVER, HIS ALTITUDE WAS INSUFFICIENT AND THE AIRCRAFT COLLIDED WITH TREES. THE CLOSEST WEATHER OBSERVATION STATION WAS REPORTING A TEMPERATURE/DEW POINT OF 85 AND 46 DEGREES, WHICH IS IN THE AREA OF A CARB ICE GRAPH ANNOTATED 'LIGHT ICING GLIDE OR CRUISE POWER.' EXAMINATION OF THE AIRCRAFT AT THE SITE REVEALED FUEL IN THE TANKS, LINES AND CARBURETOR. THE ENGINE WAS REMOVED FROM THE AIRCRAFT AND INSTALLED IN A TEST CELL. THE ENGINE STARTED AND WAS EXERCISED THROUGHOUT ITS NORMAL POWER RANGE. MAGNETO CHECKS AND ACCELERATION RATES WERE FOUND TO BE NORMAL.
Probable cause
A LOSS OF ENGINE POWER DUE TO CARBURETOR ICE AND THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO USE CARBURETOR HEAT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX92LA361
- Event ID
- 20001211X15457
- Case number
- LAX92LA361
- 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: e7ba7e3edd2d66475975c6f4eccf1b6b1c3b519e3b6c4456cf5ad15e50e0ee56; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:09:18.292Z.