LAX07LA209 · Cessna 152
California Airways Cessna 152 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Hayward Executive Airport (HWD) to Fresno Chandler Executive Airport (FCH)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX07LA209
- 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
Cessna 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N95038
- Operator
- California Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hayward Executive Airport (HWD), Hayward, CATo Fresno Chandler Executive Airport (FCH), Fresno, 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 · 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Recovery from bounced landing, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot experienced a partial loss of engine power while cruising at 5,500 feet mean sea level. The engine's rpm surged, became "very erratic," and partial power was lost. Despite application of carburetor heat and troubleshooting for causative factors, the pilot was unable to restore engine power. He made a precautionary landing at a nearby airport. With a faster than normal approach speed, the airplane touched down hard and bounced, and the student pilot lost directional control. Thereafter, the airplane veered off the runway and nosed over in a tomato field about 50 yards beyond the side of the runway. The operator maintained the airplane on a program of annual and 100-hour inspections. The last 100-inspection was performed about 35 hours prior to the accident flight. The post accident examination of the airplane's logbooks revealed record keeping deficiencies, and an examination of the engine revealed inadequate maintenance. For example, recording errors relating to the airplane's operating time were noted in the logbooks, and compliance entries for airworthiness directives were omitted. An examination of the engine revealed one spark plug was only finger tight, a cylinder had signs of excessive oil on its spark plugs, and it appeared not to be firing. All four bottom plugs had excessive carbon buildup and were fouled, and the intake air filter was dirty and partially plugged. No sole cause for the loss of engine power was ascertained.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper recovery from a bounced landing and his failure to maintain directional control during the landing roll. Contributing to the accident were the operator's inadequate engine maintenance, which precipitated the loss of engine power, the pilot's excessive approach airspeed and the crop.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX07LA209
- Event ID
- 20070720X00968
- Case number
- LAX07LA209
- 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: 255302293c5bef59c6f9fc46532a9d88ed7f90904a26c8b2c29b7db1779a0eb7; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:27:34.970Z.