WPR15LA127 · Jimenez VANS RV 7A
Jimenez VANS RV 7A · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Auburn Municipal Airport (AUN) to Dayton Valley Airpark (A34)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15LA127
- 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
Jimenez VANS RV 7A
- Aircraft type
- Jimenez VANS RV 7A
- 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
- N51MJ
- Operator
- Jimenez Michael G
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Auburn Municipal Airport (AUN), Auburn, CATo Dayton Valley Airpark (A34), Dayton, NV
- Aircraft age
- About 9 years (built 2006)
- 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
- Approach
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he departed the airport and flew at cruise altitude at 11,500 ft. About 10 miles from his destination airport, he started the descent to the traffic pattern altitude of about 6,000 ft. About 3 miles from the airport, he realized that the engine had quit without any indications or warning. The propeller was still windmilling, and he checked the engine gauges and noted that the oil pressure and temperature indications were good. He switched fuel tanks and tried to restart the engine without success. The airplane landed in a field short of the runway and then came to rest inverted.
The pilot reported that he usually keeps the mixture control lever about half to three-quarters of the way out almost the entire time he flies. He added that the only time he ever needs to change the fuel mixture is while flying above 14,500 ft. Postaccident examination of the engine revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power during descent for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination of the engine revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15LA127
- Event ID
- 20150311X00024
- Case number
- WPR15LA127
- 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: d735c2a77c398aaa6fd5b89a02be0e16089770805427b54fe2b41c3a681d79cd; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:08:26.485Z.