LAX04LA158 · Quinn Aviation Inc. E L Tom Cat MK-5A
Sierra Helicopter Services Quinn Aviation Inc. E L Tom Cat MK-5A · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Galt, CA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX04LA158
- 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
Quinn Aviation Inc. E L Tom Cat MK-5A
- Aircraft type
- Quinn E L TOM CAT MK-5A
- Category
- Helicopter
- 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
- N8429
- Operator
- Sierra Helicopter Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Galt, 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 137: Agricultural
- 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 contamination
- 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 › Contamination, water
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter lost engine power during cruise flight at 100 feet above ground level, and the pilot made a hard forced landing. Post accident inspections revealed no power plant abnormalities. Water was found in the fuel tank and a small amount was found in the bottom of the fuel screen. No other airframe or engine discrepancies were found that could explain a loss of power.
Probable cause
a loss of engine power due to water contamination of the fuel system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX04LA158
- Event ID
- 20040318X00336
- Case number
- LAX04LA158
- 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 2004-03-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 31aab1f8ad32c1367ef45be7b9f8e6c9b1a8ef02502e2fa8f365ebfe14628506; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:51:40.432Z.