LAX03LA192 · Argus Aviation CA-7
Argus Aviation CA-7 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Texas Gulf Coast Regional Airport (LBX) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03LA192
- 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
- 1 · 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
Argus Aviation CA-7
- Aircraft type
- Argus CA-7
- 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
- N9043L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Texas Gulf Coast Regional Airport (LBX), Angleton, TXTo not recorded
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Asymmetrical
- Fuel system › Out of balance
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Fuel system, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The amateur-built experimental airplane collided with terrain following a loss of control while attempting to land. As the airplane approached the displaced threshold, about 15-20 feet above ground level, it began to level off. The left wing dropped, and the airplane began to make a turn to the left. The bank continued and the airplane headed straight down. The airplane's nose impacted the ground at a 90-degree angle and was engulfed in flames. The pilot was working on a problem with his right fuel tank, and the purpose of the flight was to burn fuel from the right tank in an effort to empty it. Each tank was capable of holding about 80 gallons. The kit manufacturer stated that the airplane was not designed to fly with an imbalance of weight in the fuel tanks. He said that the airplane would be adversely affected if such an imbalance occurred, and that the airplane would not be maneuverable if one tank was full and the other empty. All flight manuals and written materials provided by the kit manufacture do not clearly state the lateral fuel imbalance limitations or prohibit flight with that condition.
Probable cause
the pilot's loss of lateral aircraft control. Also causal was the pilot's intentional flight with an asymmetrical fuel loading, and his improper use of the fuel system. A factor in the accident was the insufficient information provided by the kit manufacturer on lateral fuel imbalance limitations.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03LA192
- Event ID
- 20030618X00902
- Case number
- LAX03LA192
- 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: 1c9212f7947a16896e95114ddd12c2e1649fcdcb12eba69048f496f7d4a5845f; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:10:50.243Z.