LAX07CA120 · Carpenter Lancair 320
Carpenter Lancair 320 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Whiteman Airport (WHP) to Whiteman Airport (WHP)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX07CA120
- 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
Carpenter Lancair 320
- Aircraft type
- Carpenter LANCAIR 320
- 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
- N320
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Whiteman Airport (WHP), Los Angeles, CATo Whiteman Airport (WHP), Los Angeles, 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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, nozzle › Obstructed
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 a fence during a rejected takeoff following a partial loss of engine power. The pilot reported that after the airplane lifted off the ground, he retracted the landing gear. Just abeam the tower, he felt a "jolt/engine burp," and noted that he was about 100 feet above the ground. He reduced the power, but was not able to lower the landing gear prior to the airplane touching down on the remaining runway. The airplane slid down the runway, and came to a stop after impacting the airport perimeter fence. A Federal Aviation Administration airworthiness inspector examined the engine following the accident and noted that the number 2 fuel injection nozzle was clogged with unidentified debris that would crumble when touched. Inspection of the number 2 cylinder combustion chamber revealed a white coloration on the cylinder walls consistent with a lean fuel condition. No anomalies were noted with the remaining fuel injection nozzles and the other cylinders' combustion chambers.
Probable cause
contamination of the number 2 fuel injector nozzle that lead to a partial loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX07CA120
- Event ID
- 20070515X00570
- Case number
- LAX07CA120
- 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 2007-04-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 14cadd2b17d2689e2e8ff620dc1d109882643b40f30aa034f71f6771e0a750f0; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:55:58.162Z.