LAX07LA253 · Edra Aeronautica Seastar
Edra Aeronautica Seastar · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Kalaeloa Airport (PHJR) to Kalaeloa Airport (PHJR)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX07LA253
- 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
Edra Aeronautica Seastar
- Aircraft type
- Edra Aeronautica SEASTAR
- 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
- N559AW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kalaeloa Airport (PHJR), Kapolei, HITo Kalaeloa Airport (PHJR), Kapolei, HI
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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 supply, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, 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 flight was to be the airplane's first flight since completion. The pilot/builder reported that the departure roll was smooth and the controls felt normal. As the airplane reached about 30 feet above ground level (agl), the engine experienced a loss of power. The pilot configured the airplane in a nose-low attitude in an effort to prevent a stall. The airplane landed hard on the left main landing gear, which subsequently collapsed. The airplane skidded off the left side of the runway. The pilot stated that the wing fuel tanks were empty during departure, and that he had 6 gallons in the interior fuselage header fuel tank. The kit manufacturer advised that flight with the airplane in such a fuel system configuration is allowable. Following the accident, an FAA inspector examined the airplane and upon disassembly of the carburetor, found only a small amount of water (several drops) and trace amounts of fuel in the bowl. When fuel was plumbed to the engine, it was started and run with no anomalies noted. The inspector opined that the pilot failed to have an adequate supply of fuel onboard the airplane during departure, resulting in a fuel starvation event.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to fuel starvation that resulted from the pilot's inadequate preflight planning/preparation and failure to ensure that an adequate fuel supply was onboard the aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX07LA253
- Event ID
- 20070908X01330
- Case number
- LAX07LA253
- 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: aee6fcad2795106de2165e3e7bc6fdef409ab019327f223278374a862a141cc1; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:29:44.570Z.