LAX89LA067 · Piper PA-28-181
Bud Walen Aviation Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Big Bear City Airport (L35) to Van Nuys Airport (VNY)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX89LA067
- 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
Piper PA-28-181
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N4297X
- Operator
- Bud Walen Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Big Bear City Airport (L35), BIG BEAR, CATo Van Nuys Airport (VNY), Van Nuys, 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; Wire, transmission
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel consumption calculations, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING CRUISE FLIGHT, THE ENGINE LOST POWER. THE PILOT INITIATED A FORCED LANDING ON AN INTERSTATE. DURING THE DESCENT, THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH TRANSMISSION WIRES AND SUBSEQUENTLY CAME TO REST ON INTERSTATE 15. DURING AN INSPECTION OF THE WRECKAGE, IT WAS FOUND THAT BOTH FUEL TANKS CONTAINED VERY LITTLE FUEL. INSPECTION OF THE ENGINE DID NOT REVEAL ANY FAILURES OR MALFUNCTIONS. DURING AN INTERVIEW WITH THE PILOT SHORTLY AFTER THE ACCIDENT, AN OFFICER FROM THE SAN BERNARDINO CALIFORNIA SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT NOTED A STRONG ODOR OF ALCOHOL ON THE PILOTS BREATH AND THAT HIS EYES APPEARED TO BE VERY GLASSY AND BLOODSHOT. A TOXICOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF BLOOD TAKEN FROM THE PILOT AT THE ACCIDENT SITE REVEALED A BLOOD ALCOHOL LEVEL OF .03 PERCENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX89LA067
- Event ID
- 20001213X27445
- Case number
- LAX89LA067
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1988-12-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d6c0ebced5b20a25620c244dbc11b47d09acad67925ecc07dc7dcb1a4f2dc93a; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:59:31.301Z.