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Atlas / NTSB / LAX91LA107

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event LAX91LA107

1991-02-12 SAN LUIS OBISPO, California, United States None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N71T

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

EXPRESS ACFT CO LLC SERIES 2000

Year of manufacture

2004

Engine

CONT MOTOR IO-550 SERIES (300 hp)

Seats / Engines

4 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

20040904

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A97B5D

Registrant of record

FAWCETT ANDREW R

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

THE FAILURE OF THE FUEL SYSTEM VENT CHECK VALVE, WHICH RESULTED IN FUEL STARVATION TO THE AIRCRAFT'S ENGINE.

Factual narrative

THE PILOT WAS PERFORMING THE INITIAL TEST FLIGHT ON HIS HOMEBUILT AIRCRAFT. AFTER EXECUTING SEVERAL APPROACHES WITHOUT ACTUALLY LANDING THE AIRCRAFT, THE PILOT DECIDED TO MAKE A FINAL APPROACH TO A FULL STOP. AT APPROXIMATELY 800 FEET AGL, THE AIRCRAFT'S ENGINE EXPERIENCED A TOTAL LOSS OF POWER. THE PILOT EXECUTED A FORCED LANDING TO A FIELD. EXAMINATION BY THE FAA REVEALED THAT THE AIRCRAFT HAD ADEQUATE FUEL SUPPLY, BUT THE ENGINE FAILED AS A RESULT OF FUEL STARVATION CAUSED BY A MALFUNCTIONING FUEL SYSTEM VENT CHECK VALVE. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1991_LAX91LA107.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (fuel starvation). 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 ↗