BFO94LA154 · Piper PA-18
Piper PA-18 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Edward F Knapp State Airport (MPV) to Edward F Knapp State Airport (MPV)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO94LA154
- 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
- 0
- 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
- 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
- N720PC
- Operator
- James G Bond · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Edward F Knapp State Airport (MPV), VTTo Edward F Knapp State Airport (MPV), VT
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire, transmission
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Montpelier, VT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED THAT WHILE TURNING FROM BASE TO FINAL FOR APPROACH TO RUNWAY 23, HE REDUCED POWER. HE STATED THAT AS HE CONTINUED HIS APPROACH HE ADVANCED THE THROTTLE, BUT THE ENGINE DID NOT RESPOND. HE STATED THAT HE THROTTLED FORWARD THREE MORE TIMES BUT THE ENGINE DID NOT RESPOND. HE CHECKED AND VERIFIED THAT THE MIXTURE AND CARBURETOR HEAT WERE PROPERLY SET. HE STATED THAT HE LOWERED THE NOSE TO INCREASE THE AIRPSEED SO HE COULD FLARE ABOVE POWER LINES THAT WERE IN HIS PATH, BUT THE GEAR STRUCK THE LINES AND THE AIRPLANE DESCENDED TO THE GROUND. THE PILOT STATED THAT DURING HIS FLIGHT EARLIER HE HAD USED THE CARBURETOR HEAT AND IT WAS OPERATIONAL. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HERE WERE NO MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION. THE TEMPERATURE AND DEW POINT WERE 71 AND 59 DEGREES F, RESPECTIVELY AND ACCORDING TO ICING PROBABILITY CHARTS THESE CONDITIONS WERE CONDUCIVE FOR CARBURETOR ICING.
Probable cause
THE LOSS OF ENGINE POWER FOR REASONS UNDETERMINED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO94LA154
- Event ID
- 20001206X01977
- Case number
- BFO94LA154
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: c8d5ea22903597c59edf7a13931b3f59c63578a54dcf2dc8051867d67bc785c0; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:30:38.860Z.