WPR13LA392 · Piper PA-18-105 SPECIAL
Van Wagner Aerial Media Piper PA-18-105 SPECIAL · Accident: nose over/nose down during landing
From Compton Woodley Airport (CPM) to Compton Woodley Airport (CPM)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13LA392
- 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 PA-18-105 SPECIAL
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-18
- 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
- N224T
- Operator
- Van Wagner Aerial Media
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Compton Woodley Airport (CPM), Compton, CATo Compton Woodley Airport (CPM), Compton, 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Nose over/nose down
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, during cruise flight about 1/2 mile off shore while towing an aerial advertising banner, the engine abruptly lost power. Despite troubleshooting attempts, including the application of carburetor heat, the pilot was unable to restart the engine, and he initiated a forced landing to a nearby beach. During the landing, the airplane nosed over and came to rest partially in the ocean. A postaccident examination of the recovered airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. The quantity of fuel onboard the airplane could not be determined due to impact damage to the fuel system and its submersion in water after the accident. Although the weather conditions at the time of the accident were conducive to the accumulation of carburetor ice, the pilot applied carburetor heat, and the engine did not restart; therefore, it is unlikely that carburetor icing caused the engine to lose power. The reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power during cruise flight for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13LA392
- Event ID
- 20130830X80236
- Case number
- WPR13LA392
- 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. 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: 02fe4f2bdae03e094f6e6f04d6a260d6907dd1ab644999af0bd95328cec0cd0a; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:41:04.718Z.