LAX00LA157 · Cessna 207
Cessna 207 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA) to Roberts Field (RDM)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX00LA157
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 207
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 207
- 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
- N1682U
- Operator
- Joseph Edward Weber
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA), Santa Barbara, CATo Roberts Field (RDM), Redmond, OR
- 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
- Partial 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
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Bleed air system, fittings › Failure, total
- Bleed air system, fittings › Fatigue
- Pilot in command › Anti-ice/deice system, not possible
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The single engine airplane experienced a loss of engine power after encountering icing conditions while on an instrument cross-country flight at night. The accident airplane was modified with a Soloy engine conversion, which replaced the Continental TSIO-520 reciprocating engine with a Rolls Royce-Allison 250-C20S turbine engine. The engine was not equipped with an auto-ignition or continuous ignition system. The commercial pilot was utilizing the engine deice prior to encountering icing conditions, and selected alternate engine air once he perceived snow. The pilot reported that the engine lost power shortly after the engine alternate air was selected. The pilot-rated passenger feathered and secured the engine prior to establishing a best glide speed. The pilot attempted to restart the engine on numerous occasions; however, he was unable to obtain the 12 percent N1 required for engine start. As the airplane entered visual meteorological conditions, the pilot selected a gravel area for the forced landing. Examination of the engine revealed that the engine's anti-ice line was separated from the compressor case. Metallurgical examination of the anti-ice line revealed that its mounting pad separated from the compressor case as a result of fatigue cracking. The fatigue cracking originated from the braze joint, which displayed oxidation. According to the engine manufacturer and the engine conversion representative, the broken anti-ice line would have prevented heated air from entering the engine inlet guide vanes even with the engine deice selected. When the pilot selected the engine alternate air, relatively warm air was introduced into the engine inlet, dislodging any accumulated ice, and subsequently flaming out the engine. According to maintenance records, the engine underwent its last 100-hour inspection approximately 29 hours prior to the accident. A review of the engine operations manual revealed that due to thermal differences, the gas producing section of the engine may lock up after an in-flight engine shutdown, requiring the flight crew to wait up to 10 minutes before a successful restart.
Probable cause
the total loss of engine power while in cruise flight due to the fatigue failure of the engine's anti-ice bleed air line, which resulted in the pilot's inability to utilize the engine anti-ice system. Contributing factors were the icing conditions and the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX00LA157
- Event ID
- 20001212X20856
- Case number
- LAX00LA157
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2000-04-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4d2ef4a2226a7b006a98750382b47e46849425ddb5d340f1942172044a678654; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:15:16.987Z.