LAX05LA309 · Thomas RV4
Thomas RV4 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Kern Valley Airport (L05) to Trona Airport (L72)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX05LA309
- 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
Thomas RV4
- Aircraft type
- Thomas RV4
- 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
- N3882N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kern Valley Airport (L05), Kernville, CATo Trona Airport (L72), Trona, 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
- 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
- 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 › 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 airplane collided with obstacles off the departure end of the runway following a loss of engine power in the takeoff initial climb. The airplane took off and reached an altitude of 30 feet when the engine and propeller stopped. The airplane touched down about 150 feet from the end of the runway, overran the pavement, and collided with multiple obstacles. Examination of the airplane revealed that the fuel selector was in the left tank position. The right wing fuel tank filler cap was removed and the tank was observed to be nearly full. The left wing had partially separated from the wing root and the fuel line was broken at that location. The left wing fuel tank filler cap was removed and the tank was observed to be nearly empty. When the left wing was tilted, approximately 1 quart of fluid was observed to drain out. There was no visual evidence or odor of fuel in the ground beneath the left wing. An Airframe & Powerplant (A&P) mechanic examined the airplane's fuel system and reported that there was no fuel found in the fuel line between the engine driven fuel pump and the carburetor. He found about a teaspoon of fuel in the carburetor bowl. He operated the electric fuel pump successfully and disassembled the engine driven fuel pump, noting no peculiarities and an intact diaphragm.
Probable cause
a loss of engine power due to fuel starvation caused by the pilot's failure to select a tank containing fuel for takeoff. A factor in the accident was the lack of a runway overrun area beyond the departure end of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX05LA309
- Event ID
- 20050927X01536
- Case number
- LAX05LA309
- 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: 214d7072c14ec84089ea969644d66a376eed9650f56ee27b8dcdd4d055af57dc; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:03:02.585Z.