LAX02TA207 · Cessna 337C
Cessna 337C · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From San Bernardino International Airport (SBD) to Big Bear City Airport (L35)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02TA207
- 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
- Government
- 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 337C
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 337
- 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
- N2671S
- Operator
- USDA Pacific Southwest Region
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Bernardino International Airport (SBD), San Bernardino, CATo Big Bear City Airport (L35), Big Bear 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fuel system › Starvation
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After a 30 minute flight, and approximately 5 minutes prior to landing, the pilot switched the fuel selectors to the "AUXILIARY" position. During the turn from downwind to base, both engines lost total power. The pilot activated both auxiliary electric boost pumps to the "LOW" position with no change in power noted. Unable to reach the runway, the pilot elected to execute a forced landing to a residential road. The airplane landed hard and impacted a tree and a fence. The airplane was destroyed by an ensuing fire. The airplane contained approximately 40-60 gallons of fuel prior to departure. The amount of fuel in the fuel tanks at the accident site could not be determined; however, fuel samples were obtained from all four fuel tanks with no anomalies noted. The Cessna POH "Before Landing" checklist requires the fuel selectors to be in the following positions: Front Engine - "LEFT MAIN"; Rear Engine - "RIGHT MAIN". The POH "Engine-Out During Flight" checklist requires the fuel selectors to be in the main tank positions, and the pilot to "turn its auxiliary fuel pump on 'HI' until fuel flow is restored." The pilot had accumulated a total of 46 hours in the airplane make and model.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02TA207
- Event ID
- 20020621X00957
- Case number
- LAX02TA207
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2002-06-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0654e4fd6f6ac752c96ac954fa406a53ecadf691ca0af45d361cbf6c713e2dda; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:18:55.143Z.