WPR10LA252 · Luscombe Silvaire Aircraft Co. S-LSA-8C
Luscombe Silvaire Aircraft Co. S-LSA-8C · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during takeoff
From Riverside Municipal Airport (RAL) to Columbia, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10LA252
- 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
Luscombe Silvaire Aircraft Co. S-LSA-8C
- Aircraft type
- Luscombe Silvaire S-LSA-8C
- 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
- N599LS
- Operator
- Luscombe Silvaire Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Riverside Municipal Airport (RAL), Riverside, CATo Columbia, 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed for a cross-country flight with full fuel in the left and right fuel tanks and with the left fuel tank selected. However, during the flight the pilot was unable to change from the almost empty left fuel tank to the full right fuel tank. When the engine began to lose power due to fuel starvation, the pilot decided to land in a field to troubleshoot the fuel selector issue. A witness, who saw the airplane land and spoke with the pilot, said that the pilot reported a problem with the fuel selector valve. The witness saw the pilot working on the airplane, and then the pilot and passenger stated that they were going to fly to a nearby airport to complete repairs. According to the passenger, they examined the fuel valve and found that the set screw had fallen out. He thought that they set the fuel selector to the right fuel tank before attempting the flight for further repairs. However, about 10 seconds after takeoff the engine started to lose power again. The pilot attempted to turn back to land in the field again, but the airplane pitched down in a left turn and impacted the ground. Postaccident examination of the fuel selector valve and assembly revealed that the fuel selector valve shaft was sheared off, disconnecting the handle from the valve, and that the fuel valve was positioned to draw fuel from the left fuel tank. The airplane total time at the accident site was 1.82 hours. A logbook entry dated the day of the accident documented the issuance of a Special Airworthiness Certificate and Operating Limitations that day. Photographs taken during the issuance of the Special Airworthiness Certificate and Operating Limitations and those taken after the accident (as well as a note on the pilot’s kneeboard), indicated that the airspeed indicator color arcs were not marked as required.
Probable cause
The pilot's continued operation of the airplane with known mechanical deficiencies, which resulted in a loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10LA252
- Event ID
- 20100522X12052
- Case number
- WPR10LA252
- 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: 9cfdbe99535b10e513a2d292cf3538c8716319df9901094d40c9b5036fcafdc4; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:10:36.406Z.