LAX08LA299 · Cessna 152
Rainbow Air Academy Cessna 152 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during takeoff
From McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ) to Long Beach International Airport (LGB)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX08LA299
- 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
- N271RJ
- Operator
- Rainbow Air Academy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ), Carlsbad, CATo Long Beach International Airport (LGB), Long Beach, 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
- Takeoff
- Defining eventThe 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 (total)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During takeoff the engine lost power. The pilot attempted to restart the engine without success and then began maneuvering the airplane away from power transmission lines. A witness observed the airplane flying slowly and emanating an "underpowered" sound. The airplane then began a descending right turn, and collided with rising terrain. The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings and the fuselage structure. On a prior flight earlier in the day the pilot reported having problems starting the engine, as well as encountering excessive engine roughness while performing the magneto check. Prior to the accident flight, the pilot again encountered engine roughness during the magneto check, which he resolved by running the engine for 5 minutes at a lean mixture and increased engine rpm. Examination of the engine and airframe revealed no obvious evidence of premishap mechanical malfunction or failure.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power during takeoff for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX08LA299
- Event ID
- 20081003X17539
- Case number
- LAX08LA299
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 61bc552f9ab052cecd86f5a64f6c4db05bd4d87f952eb479070a7722f605cc5a; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:17:28.998Z.