LAX04CA326 · IAR SA Brasov 823
IAR SA Brasov 823 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From 4SD · Reno, NV to Turlock Municipal Airport (O15)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX04CA326
- 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
IAR SA Brasov 823
- Aircraft type
- Iar Sa Brasov 823
- 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
- N823WT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 4SD · Reno, NVTo Turlock Municipal Airport (O15), Turlock, 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 · descent
- 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 › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, not verified
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane experienced a loss of engine power and collided with terrain during a forced landing in a soft, wet field. Prior to departure, the pilot performed a preflight inspection, at which time he visually verified the airplane's fuel quantities by both physically looking inside the wing tanks, and by checking his fuel computer/totalizer inside the cockpit. The pilot did not use a dipstick or other means to physically quantify the fuel on board. He determined that he had a more than adequate amount of fuel for the 1- to 1 1/2-hour flight. While en route, the pilot compared the "fuel remaining time" with the "time en route remaining" on his gauges numerous times. As he came in the proximity of the airport the engine coughed once and subsequently quit. Despite his efforts, the engine would not restart and the pilot made an emergency landing. While descending, the left wing tip contacted the ground first, and the landing gear touched down on the soft wet ground. The pilot drained both fuel tanks and found about 1 gallon of fuel remaining. The pilot opined that 12 gallons of fuel was siphoned from the airplane prior to departure. The pilot stated that the accident could have been prevented if he had used a fuel quantity dipstick. The pilot reported no mechanical malfunctions of failures with the airplane prior to impact.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to verify the fuel quantity on board prior to departure, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and loss of engine power due to an inadequate fuel supply.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX04CA326
- Event ID
- 20041005X01570
- Case number
- LAX04CA326
- 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: 41a1ec99ac20c7da2c01815b0969524901c8847a9beec6a3995181f3a296d4ab; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:42:04.502Z.