LAX91FA222 · Cessna 150K
Flying Club Cessna 150K · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From P06 · BULLHEAD, AZ to John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91FA222
- 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
Cessna 150K
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- 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
- N6003G
- Operator
- The Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From P06 · BULLHEAD, AZTo John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA), Santa Ana, 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
- 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
- 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 › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, inaccurate
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT CONTACTED APPROACH CONTROL WITH AN EMERGENCY CALL STATING THAT HIS AIRCRAFT'S ENGINE HAD LOST POWER. HE SAID THAT HE THOUGHT A BIRD HAD STRUCK HIS AIRCRAFT. HE GOT THE ENGINE RE-STARTED, BUT IT WOULD NOT MAINTAIN ADEQUATE POWER TO SUSTAIN FLIGHT. THE ENGINE HAD A SECOND LOSS OF POWER. THE PILOT ENTERED A POWER OFF FORCED LANDING. ACCORDING TO A WITNESS FLYING ANOTHER AIRPLANE AND OBSERVING THE DISABLED AIRCRAFT, THE PILOT OF THE DISABLED AIRCRAFT FLEW STRAIGHT INTO AN ELECTRICAL POWER TRANSFORMER WITHOUT DEVIATING FROM HIS HEADING. ON SCENE EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT THE AIRCRAFT'S FUEL TANKS CONTAINED A TOTAL OF ABOUT 7/8 GALLON OF FUEL. THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF FUEL SPILLAGE OR LACK OF INTEGRITY IN THE FUEL SYSTEM.
Probable cause
FUEL EXHAUSTION DUE TO IMPROPER PREFLIGHT PLANNING AND INACCURATE FUEL CONSUMPTION CALCULATIONS. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO CHOOSE A PROPER EMERGENCY LANDING SITE AND/OR DEVIATE FROM A STRAIGHT COURSE DURING THE EMERGENCY DESCENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91FA222
- Event ID
- 20001212X17023
- Case number
- LAX91FA222
- 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: 11feb0d15f9aef43f6837384b6b2d9f664562735ee390c9528664c285f504b1b; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:48:27.431Z.