LAX90LA075 · Bellanca 14-19-2
Bellanca 14-19-2 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Catalina Airport (AVX) to Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX90LA075
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Bellanca 14-19-2
- Aircraft type
- Bellanca 14
- 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
- N7654B
- Operator
- Brown, Jerry · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Catalina Airport (AVX), CATALINA, CATo 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Pilot in command › Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT WAS RECEIVING RADAR ADVISORIES FROM LAX TRACON. HE REPORTED THE ENGINE LOST TOTAL POWER. UNABLE TO RESTART THE ENGINE, THE PLT DITCHED THE AIRPLANE IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN. ALL OF THE OCCUPANTS WERE RESCUED BY A FISHING BOAT BEFORE THE AIRPLANE SANK. NEITHER THE AIRPLANE NOR THE ENGINE WAS RECOVERED. THE PLT REPORTED THAT THE ENGINE POWER LOSS APPEARED TO BE FUEL RELATED. THE AIRPLANE HAD 31 GALLONS OF FUEL WHEN IT DEPARTED AND WAS ABOUT 12 MINUTES INTO THE FLIGHT WHEN THE POWER LOSS OCCURRED. THE MAINTENANCE LOGBOOKS REVEALED THAT THE ENGINE HAD BEEN DISASSEMBLED AND INSPECTED DUE TO A PROP STRIKE. IT HAD BEEN REINSTALLED ON THE AIRPLANE ABOUT 1 MONTH BEFORE THE ACCIDENT. AN OVERHAULED ENGINE DRIVEN FUEL PUMP WAS ALSO INSTALLED AT THE TIME THE ENGINE WAS REINSTALLED ON THE AIRPLANE. THE AIRPLANE ACCRUED ABOUT 31 FLIGHT HOURS SINCE THE ENGINE WAS REINSTALLED.
Probable cause
LOSS OF ENGINE POWER FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX90LA075
- Event ID
- 20001212X22441
- Case number
- LAX90LA075
- 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: 0cce51fc96e8b76a5c55e9c4cc79a56d566ba97fe34e4a774eaf8e6051aaf62f; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:05:20.766Z.