LAX91LA371 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Long Beach International Airport (LGB) to Catalina Airport (AVX)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA371
- 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
Cessna 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N320SV
- Operator
- John M. Wells · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Long Beach International Airport (LGB), Long Beach, CATo Catalina Airport (AVX), SANTA CATALINA, 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT OF A CESSNA 152 EXPERIENCED A LOSS OF ENGINE POWER AT 2,500 FEET MSL WHILE ENROUTE TO AVALON, CALIFORNIA. THE PILOT DITCHED IN THE OCEAN AND THE AIRPLANE SANK IN DEEP WATER AND WAS NOT RECOVERED. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HIS ATTEMPTS TO RESTART THE ENGINE WERE UNSUCCESSFUL. THE AIRPLANE WAS REFUELED WITH 10 GALLONS OF AVIATION FUEL ABOUT TWO WEEKS BEFORE AND WAS AIRBORNE ABOUT 15 MINUTES BEFORE THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
A LOSS OF ENGINE POWER FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS AND SUBSEQUENT DITCHING WHILE FLYING OVER THE OCEAN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA371
- Event ID
- 20001212X17912
- Case number
- LAX91LA371
- 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: a12857a3ad4db34160c0bed48d2927b4d35ef816ee4ba4e5ad6f43be04da380e; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:45:47.458Z.