LAX86LA064 · Cessna 335
Cessna 335 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From 052 · Yuba City, CA to 052 · Yuba City, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX86LA064
- 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 335
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 335
- 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
- N2708X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 052 · Yuba City, CATo 052 · Yuba City, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern turn to base
- 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
- 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 › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
UPON COMPLETING A 35 MIN SIGHT-SEEING FLIGHT THE PLT ENTERED THE TRAFFIC PATTERN & PREPARED FOR LANDING. WHILE DESCENDING, BOTH ENGINES LOST ALL POWER. THE PLT STATED THAT HE REPOSITIONED THE FUEL SELECTORS TO THE AUX TANKS, POWER WAS RESTORED TO THE LEFT ENGINE, & THE ACFT 'STARTED A VMC ROLL TO THE RIGHT.' AT THE TIME THE ACFT WAS 300 FT AGL. UNABLE TO MAINTAIN DIRECTIONAL CONTROL, THE PLT REDUCED PWR & THE ACFT DESCENDED INTO TERRAIN COMING TO REST 500 YDS FROM THE ARPT. THE PLT ACKNOWLEDGED THAT THE LOSS OF ENG POWER RUSULTED FROM HIS IMPROPER FUEL MANAGEMENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX86LA064
- Event ID
- 20001214X38443
- Case number
- LAX86LA064
- 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: 62c467f827d4d9129c772c6058a6da3e6923c550285cb0e638e2a55aa34a5eba; retrieved 2026-09-22T01:34:53.772Z.