LAX02LA296 · Whetzel Thorpe T-18
Whetzel Thorpe T-18 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Ramona Airport (RNM) to Blackinton Airport (2CA4)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02LA296
- 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
Whetzel Thorpe T-18
- Aircraft type
- Whetzel THORPE T-18
- 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
- N60LW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ramona Airport (RNM), Ramona Airport, CATo Blackinton Airport (2CA4), Valley Center, 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
- 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 (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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, not verified
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the engine experienced a loss of power while en route, and the airplane collided with a dirt berm while he attempted a forced landing at a private airstrip. With the flaps in the retracted position, he attempted to land on the dirt runway. While on the landing roll, he was unable to stop the airplane before colliding with a hill at the end of the runway. A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector examined the airplane about an hour after the accident occurred. He did not see any skid marks to indicate emergency braking action. He also saw no signs of fuel at the accident site. He visually checked the inside of the fuel tanks and found that both were empty. Neither of the fuel tanks were breached during the accident. He also noted that the airplane's fuel gauges were inoperable. The pilot told him that the fuel indictors do not work, but he visually checked the quantity before flights. He added that he uses automobile fuel, which has no color, and therefore, is difficult to verify quantity.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate preflight planning/preparation by not verifying the fuel supply, and his inadequate in-flight planning/decision, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and loss of engine power. A factor in the accident was the pilot's decision to initiate flight with a known equipment deficiency (inoperative fuel quantity gauge).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02LA296
- Event ID
- 20020927X05231
- Case number
- LAX02LA296
- 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: ea04ef4c2d22c178dba03a61dffec9ac597277b3d42833d8a86aa83c5b4c297a; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:36:50.127Z.