LAX01LA107 · Christian Rans S-12
Christian Rans S-12 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Barona, CA (no airport) to No airport
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX01LA107
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Christian Rans S-12
- Aircraft type
- Christian RANS S-12
- 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
- N12FC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Barona, CA (no airport)To No airport
- 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 (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
- Engine assembly, crankshaft › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, the engine lost power while in cruise flight. He attempted to land in a small canyon, or ravine area, and was unable to avoid a single tree that was directly in front of him in the center of the ravine. The left wing struck the tree and the right wing was bent when it struck the ground. The pilot, who is also the builder of the airplane, inspected the engine and found a broken crankshaft at the number 1 piston rod attach point. The engine had oil and no other anomalies were observed. The pilot reported that the engine was overhauled 20 hours prior to the accident. The manufacturer of the engine stated that the engine life for this model is 300 hours or 5 years. The engine in the accident airplane was manufactured on March 10, 1991. The manufacturer said they have no service history of crankshaft failures in this particular model engine. The crankshaft is required to be replaced at each overhaul. The engine was overhauled at a facility that only provides engines for ultralight aircraft. The owner of the facility stated that he does not approve of the use of his engines in certified airplanes. He said he recalled overhauling this engine but could not remember the date, and does not believe the crankshaft was replaced. The crankshaft was not provided for metallurgical examination.
Probable cause
The in-flight failure of the engine crankshaft for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX01LA107
- Event ID
- 20010308X00563
- Case number
- LAX01LA107
- 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: a07113c8353e1646c89bf5891354abd32e1ecaf7c89fc8e857afc9408f9d0f05; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:07:42.226Z.