LAX03LA169 · Callahan Rebel
Callahan Rebel · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Roseburg Regional Airport (RBG) to O56 · Novato, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03LA169
- 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
Callahan Rebel
- Aircraft type
- Callahan REBEL
- 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
- N6324H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Roseburg Regional Airport (RBG), Roseburg, ORTo O56 · Novato, 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 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Checklist, not used
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
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 landed the airplane on the slope of a ridge, after losing engine power during cruise flight. The pilot reported that while in cruise flight at 7,500 feet msl, the engine started to run rough. He applied full rich mixture, and pumped the throttle. This alleviated the problem for a while, but then the engine lost total power. He intended to land in clear area; however, the airplane did not have enough altitude to clear an intervening ridge line. The firewall, propeller, and fuselage skin were damaged during the accident. After exiting the airplane, the pilot noted that the right fuel valve was closed. During his preflight procedure he normally turns both fuel valves on to check the fuel drains. He then leaves the valves ON until he lands. A Federal Aviation Administration inspector examined the airplane after the accident and stated that the right fuel tank was about 80 percent full of fuel, and the left fuel tank was less than 10 percent full of fuel. The pilot reported no pre-impact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane. The pilot did report that if he had used a checklist that the accident could have been prevented.
Probable cause
fuel starvation due to the pilot's inadequate preflight inspection and failure to correctly position the right fuel valve. Also causal was the pilot's failure to use the checklist.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03LA169
- Event ID
- 20030605X00801
- Case number
- LAX03LA169
- 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: f82a90e39ba8b5ef65ebf2c497a6708254c58cc95de0061dab7a300bf2d0bc66; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:28:34.616Z.