LAX91LA112 · Piper PA46-310P
Malibu Air Piper PA46-310P · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From SKE · Taos, NM to Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA112
- 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 PA46-310P
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA46
- 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
- N9132X
- Operator
- Malibu Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From SKE · Taos, NMTo Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO), Santa Monica, 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
- Approach
- 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
- Partial 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 › Aircraft weight and balance, inaccurate
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inaccurate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A PIPER PA 46-310P LOST ENGINE POWER AND WAS FORCED TO LAND IN A RESIDENTIAL AREA. EXAM OF THE AIRCRAFT FUEL SYSTEM REVEALED ABOUT ONE PINT OF FUEL IN EACH WING TANK. THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF FUEL SPILLAGE OR ANY EVIDENCE AIRCRAFT FUEL LEAKS AT THE ACCIDENT SCENE. THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF AN INFLIGHT FUEL LEAK ON THE AIRCRAFT FUSELAGE. THE PILOT INDICATED THAT HIS PLANNED FUEL CONSUMPTION SHOULD HAVE AVERAGED 17 GALLONS PER HOUR (GPH). THE AVERAGE FUEL CONSUMPTION FOR THE TRIP WAS 19.9 GPH. THE PIPER PA 46-310P, PILOT OPERATING HANDBOOK (POH) PREDICTS A FUEL CONSUMPTION OF 17.5 GPH FOR THE TRIP FLIGHT CONDITIONS. THE PILOT CALCULATED THE MAX GROSS WEIGHT (GWT) OF THE AIRCRAFT AT THE START OF THE ACCIDENT FLIGHT TO BE 4,116.7 POUNDS, 1.3 POUNDS BELOW THE MAX RAMP WT OF 4,118 POUNDS. THE WEIGHT OF THE AIRCRAFT WAS RECALCULATED BASED ON ACTUAL PASSENGER WEIGHTS AND ACTUAL BAGGAGE WEIGHTS. THE AIRCRAFT WAS DETERMINED TO BE 260 POUNDS OVER MAXIMUM GWT BEFORE TAKEOFF. THE POH DOES NOT LIST ANY PERFORMANCE DATA FOR AN AIRCRAFT BEING OPERATED OVER MAXIMUM GWT.
Probable cause
THE POOR PREFLIGHT PLANNING PERFORMED BY THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND IN ACCURATELY DETERMINING THE WEIGHT AND FUEL CONSUMPTION OF THE AIRPLANE WHICH RESULTED IN LOSS OF ENGINE POWER DUE TO FUEL EXHAUSTION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA112
- Event ID
- 20001212X16479
- Case number
- LAX91LA112
- 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 1991-02-25.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5b686f22831c1e5b892ab2c6204db53ef986c5d4be8c72e1c5af604f8decff92; retrieved 2026-09-23T04:42:30.727Z.