LAX03LA213 · McAnally Glasair JM-1
McAnally Glasair JM-1 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From K307 · Hollister, CA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03LA213
- 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
McAnally Glasair JM-1
- Aircraft type
- Mcanally GLASAIR JM-1
- 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
- N104JM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From K307 · Hollister, CATo 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- 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 › Vapor lock
- Pilot in command › Checklist, not followed
- Pilot in command › Fuel boost pump selector position, not set
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 had just departed the airport when the engine started to surge. Upon reducing power and leaning the mixture, the engine smoothed out and the pilot was able to turn the airplane back towards the airport. At 800 feet and parallel to runway 31, the engine quit. During the descent, the airplane clipped a tree and struck a piece of concrete before coming to rest inverted in a field. The pilot stated that the electric fuel boost pump, which was required for flight, was not turned on. A post accident inspection failed to reveal any discrepancies with the engine or the aircraft's fuel system. The pilot did not report any mechanical malfunction with the airplane. To prevent similar accident in the future, he recommended turning the electric fuel pump to the "ON" position, prior to departure. The pilot reported the ambient temperature to be 38 degrees Celsius. Item number 5 on the pretakeoff portion of the checklist notes to turn on the electric boost pump.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to follow the checklist and apply the electric fuel pump prior to takeoff, which resulted in vapor lock.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03LA213
- Event ID
- 20030701X00987
- Case number
- LAX03LA213
- 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 2003-06-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5e029bf3cb88611ec5375dd34e16516eb53d63d921cf1d220cba8d22b907c4ec; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:26:32.845Z.