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Atlas / NTSB / LAX81FVM13

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event LAX81FVM13

1981-02-27 WATSONVILLE, California, United States None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N1611V

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

CESSNA 120

Year of manufacture

1947 · 34 years old at event

Engine

CONT MOTOR C85 SERIES (85 hp)

Seats / Engines

2 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19721130

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A0F7F4

Registrant of record

REVAK BEN

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Historical record (pre-1982)

NTSB recorded this accident in the pre-1982 coded-field schema — structured fields rather than free-text narrative. Decoded codes use established NTSB single-letter taxonomies; cause factors remain verbatim pending the Form 6120.4 codebook lookup.

Aircraft

CESSNA 120 · N1611V

Damage

Substantial

Craft type

Airplane

Classification

Accident

Light condition

Dawn

Weather

VMC

Phase of flight

Takeoff — initial climb (C1)

Operator type

D

Airport

WATSONVILLE

Kind of flying

B0

Weather at impact

Sky

CLEAR

Wind

190° / 5 kt

Aircraft history

Serial number

000000013783

Total time

2,730 hrs

Pilot

Certificate

Commercial

Total hours

629

Age

45

Probable cause (from PRE1982.MDB)

HEN FUEL ACTUALLY COMING FM L TANK.L TANK EMPTY.

Investigator remarks

FUEL VALVE SHAFT MODIFIED,SELECTOR READ R TANK W

Cause factors

  • 68/C/D6 C
    PERSONNEL INADEQUATE MAINTENANCE AND INSPECTION Cause
  • 74/C/CC C
    POWERPLANT SELECTOR VALVES Cause
  • 88/C/CB C
    MISCELLANEOUS ACTS,CONDITIONS IMPROPERLY INSTALLED Cause
  • 88/C/96 C
    MISCELLANEOUS ACTS,CONDITIONS FUEL STARVATION Cause
  • 83/K/A K
    TERRAIN WET,SOFT GROUND Joint factor

Decoded against the NTSB Form 6120.4 cause-factor codebook (ct_Pre1982 table). Each row shows the raw triplet, modifier (Cause / Factor / etc.), category, and specific code.

Source: NTSB pre-1982 historical archive. Docket 3 0399. Source file NTSB_1981_3_0399.txt. Modern CAROL record on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type. Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗