LAX01LA064 · Cessna 140
Cessna 140 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From L80 · HI DESERT, CA to L45
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX01LA064
- 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 140
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 140
- 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
- N72970
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From L80 · HI DESERT, CATo L45
- 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 final
- 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 starvation
- 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
- Pilot in command › Fuel management, inadequate
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a forced landing precipitated by fuel starvation and a loss of engine power, the airplane collided with a fence and overturned. The engine stopped producing power about 2 miles from the airport, and the pilot thought he could make it to the airport. About 500 feet above the ground, he noticed the airport boundary fence. He felt he might strike it with the landing gear while in flight, so he decided to land short of the airport. After the airplane came to rest, the pilot saw fuel leaking from the inverted wing fuel tanks and evacuated the airplane. The pilot did not recall moving the fuel selector valve after landing. The fuel selector valve pointed to a position 20 to 30 degrees left of the right fuel tank position. It pointed to the middle of a placard that indicated right tank. However, a mechanic said he felt this position would not allow either tank to supply sufficient fuel to the engine. He observed a flexible detent that was installed to ensure proper position of the fuel selector valve when the right fuel tank was selected. The flexible detent bent down and was not useable.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate in-flight planning, fuel management, and inadequate remedial actions, which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation. The pilot made an off-field landing and collided with a fence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX01LA064
- Event ID
- 20001228X45496
- Case number
- LAX01LA064
- 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: 42f95e7dc2f0c0167874c12b49e6a375d02cb012a73c6881a7674119f22bc795; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:01:44.487Z.