LAX02LA035 · Classic Aircraft Corp. WACO YMF
Classic Aircraft Corp. WACO YMF · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) on approach
From San Bernardino International Airport (SBD) to L12 · Redlands, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02LA035
- 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
Classic Aircraft Corp. WACO YMF
- Aircraft type
- Classic WACO YMF
- 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
- N31BN
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Bernardino International Airport (SBD), San Bernardino, CATo L12 · Redlands, 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 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 (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Fuel system, carburetor float › Cracked
- Fuel system, carburetor › Leak
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane lost power on final approach for landing and impacted rocky terrain about 1/4 mile from the approach end of the runway. The pilot stated that he was flying to local airports. The plan was to do a touch-and-go landing and then depart. He noted no discrepancies until the second leg of the flight when he was on final. He had setup for landing, which included reducing power and adding carburetor heat. On final he smelled fuel. He noted that an existing headwind had put the airplane farther back on the approach than he had expected, and he realized that he was not going to make the runway. The pilot advanced the throttle, but did not receive a corresponding power output from the engine. The airplane came to rest in rocky terrain. Later examination of the carburetor float revealed that it was cracked and full of fuel. Furthermore, fuel was leaking around the mixture control, accelerator pump, and in the idle tube area of the carburetor.
Probable cause
a loss of engine power due to a crack in the carburetor float and leaking portions of the carburetor that resulted in an overly rich mixture.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02LA035
- Event ID
- 20011212X02391
- Case number
- LAX02LA035
- 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, coordinates. 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: 23f1377fcbd8d5e6c4481908adc60878ef9d952ffd373d424b494a1cddfe7038; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:18:10.886Z.