LAX07CA145 · Piper J3C-65
Piper J3C-65 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Marin County Airport - Gnoss Field (DVO) to Benton Field (O85)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX07CA145
- 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
Piper J3C-65
- Aircraft type
- Piper J3
- 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
- N145RL
- Operator
- Jeff Iverson
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Marin County Airport - Gnoss Field (DVO), Novato, CATo Benton Field (O85), Redding, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
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's left wing collided with a tree during a forced landing following a loss of engine power. While on the approach for landing, the engine lost power and the pilot attempted to land the airplane on a residential street. The left wing collided with a tree during the landing ground roll. Recovery personnel noted that no fuel was in the airplane's fuel tanks, and fresh blue staining was evident on the belly area below and behind the fuel strainer drain outlet. The pilot reported that the airplane's fuel tanks had been filled the day preceding the flight, but he could not provide fuel receipts. The airplane's performance specifications state that at 3,000 feet, with 75 percent power and best power mixture, the airplane cruises at 73 miles per hour and achieves a fuel consumption of 4.4 gallons per hour. The fuel capacity is 12 gallons. The straight line distance between the departure and destination airports was 146 nm. The airplane landed 4,500 feet short of the airport.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX07CA145
- Event ID
- 20070627X00821
- Case number
- LAX07CA145
- 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: 8942d209bd72ec6d6611aa3b90c592ebdf00b7324fd22043e87c1f188d4a4dd8; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:51:50.763Z.