LAX00LA153 · Quicksilver SPRINT 2
Quicksilver SPRINT 2 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Fresno Chandler Executive Airport (FCH) to 032 · Reedley, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX00LA153
- 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
Quicksilver SPRINT 2
- Aircraft type
- Quicksilver SPRINT 2
- 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
- UNREG
- Operator
- Patrick S. Harrington · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fresno Chandler Executive Airport (FCH)To 032 · Reedley, 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 (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Stall/mush
- 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
- Engine assembly, piston › Overtemperature
- Engine assembly, piston › Seized
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The non-certificated pilot stated that he was flying about 1,200 feet mean sea level when the engine began to run roughly, then quit altogether. He was attempting to land in a field when he observed power lines in his path. During the pull-up maneuver to avoid the wires, the airplane stalled and crashed in the field. Disassembly of the Rotax 503 engine revealed that the No. 2 piston was scored and heat discolored, and had seized in the cylinder. The airplane gross weight, number of seats, and fuel capacity exceed the limitations in 14 CFR Part 103. Review of FAA aircraft and airman records disclosed no record that the airplane had ever been registered or issued an airworthiness certificate. No record was found that the pilot had ever been issued a pilot or medical certificate. A check of FAA records in the Fresno Flight Standards District Office found no evidence that the pilot/owner of the airplane had ever been issued a waiver in accordance with 14 CFR 103.5.
Probable cause
The overheating and seizure of the number 2 piston for undetermined reasons. Also causal was the pilot's failure to maintain an adequate airspeed while maneuvering for a forced landing, which led to an inadvertent stall/mush.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX00LA153
- Event ID
- 20001212X20852
- Case number
- LAX00LA153
- 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: 6fd616f9eae94683430a90abac4b6783fe0fd35b909906457b7625c54f70b404; retrieved 2026-09-22T13:00:36.466Z.