WPR24LA081 · Christopher Randall RAPTOR JUNIOR 540
Christopher Randall RAPTOR JUNIOR 540 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Santa Monica Municipal Airport (KSMO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR24LA081
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Christopher Randall RAPTOR JUNIOR 540
- Aircraft type
- Christopher Randall RAPTOR JUNIOR 540
- 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
- N906CR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Monica Municipal Airport (KSMO), Santa Monica, CATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2023)
- 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
- En route
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
In cruise flight, the pilot noticed a warning indication from the airplane’s avionics display alerting him to a loss of electrical power. Immediately following, the avionics display went dark, followed by a total loss of engine power. The pilot attempted to restore electrical power; however, neither the primary nor secondary electrical power was restored. He initiated a forced landing to a field, during which the airplane sustained substantial damage. The airplane was equipped with an electronic fuel injection and ignition system that required continuous electrical power to operate. Although the airplane was equipped with dual electrical systems for redundancy, both systems shared a common ground. Examination revealed a loose connection between a common ground feed-through stud and the ground bus. This loose connection likely resulted in the loss of electrical power to core aircraft systems, and the subsequent total loss of engine power. No other anomalies were noted with the wreckage that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to the loss of power to the electronic fuel injection and ignition system, which was the result of a loose connection between a common ground feed-through stud and the ground bus.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR24LA081
- Event ID
- 20240201193732
- Case number
- WPR24LA081
- 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, cause areas. 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: fc518fa31e2be78d701a9a1a1decf39d0231aa11e1ef40ed39342001a9077c30; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:28:32.881Z.