ATL07LA054 · James Walter Hornet
James Walter Hornet · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Camilla Mitchell County Airport (CXU) to Lake Elmo Airport (21D)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL07LA054
- 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
James Walter Hornet
- Aircraft type
- James Walter HORNET
- 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
- N7XS
- Operator
- Julian A. Carlson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Camilla Mitchell County Airport (CXU), Camilla, GATo Lake Elmo Airport (21D), ST PAUL, MN
- 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 · 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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/exhaustion; Tree(s)
- 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, line fitting › Brittle fracture
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to a witness, he recalled that the pilot was at the airport inquiring about the purchase of fuel. The witness stated that the pilot wanted to top off his right main fuel tank, and it required 9.1 gallons of fuel. The airplane was later found in a heavily wooded area, and the propeller exhibited no evidence of rotation. During the examination of the airplane it was noted that the right main tank fuel line was disconnected at the engine fuel intake line. During inspection of this fitting it was noted that the o-ring seal was very brittle, and the locking mechanism could not lock the fuel line into the engine fuel line fitting. This would have caused a restriction of fuel to the engine therefore causing fuel starvation, and a subsequent loss of engine power. After the accident, fuel was supplied to the engine and a test-run was successfully completed.
Probable cause
The failure of the right main fuel line, resulting in fuel starvation and a loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL07LA054
- Event ID
- 20070403X00367
- Case number
- ATL07LA054
- 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: d0b96fd8c13fa1a4086bfa72bc4246a88e88aec82d5cefcf63d6a6949dbacb05; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:47:13.642Z.