BFO95LA060 · Bronislaus CHALLENGER II CHALLENGER
Bronislaus CHALLENGER II CHALLENGER · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From 22B to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO95LA060
- 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
Bronislaus CHALLENGER II CHALLENGER
- Aircraft type
- Bronislaus CHALLENGER
- 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
- N8101Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 22BTo not recorded
- 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 downwind
- 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
- Stall/spin
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Dual student › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Dual student › Judgment, poor
- Dual student › Lack of total experience
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Judgment, poor
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Burlington, CT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
WHILE IN THE TRAFFIC PATTERN, THE ENGINE LOST POWER. THE AIRPLANE DESCENDED AND SPUN TO THE GROUND. THIS WAS THE 30-HR STUDENT PILOT'S FIRST FLIGHT IN THE AIRPLANE. THE STUDENT PILOT WAS IN THE FRONT SEAT AND THE CFI WAS IN THE REAR SEAT. THE REAR SEAT DID NOT HAVE ANY FLIGHT CONTROLS. POSTACCIDENT EXAMINATION OF THE AIRFRAME AND ENGINE DID NOT REVEAL ANY ANOMALIES. THE TWO THROTTLE CONTROLS, ONE LOCATED AT EACH PILOT STATION, WERE FOUND IN THE IDLE POSITION. NEITHER THE STUDENT PILOT NOR THE CFI HAVE ANY RECOLLECTION OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
A LOSS OF ENGINE POWER FOR AN UNDETERMINED REASON(S), THE 30-HOUR STUDENT PILOT'S POOR JUDGMENT IN ALLOWING HIMSELF TO RECEIVE DUAL INSTRUCTION IN AN AIRPLANE NOT EQUIPPED WITH DUAL CONNTOLS, THE CFI'S POOR JUDGMENT IN ATTEMPTING TO GIVE INSTRUCTION TO A 30-HR STUDENT PILOT IN THE AIRPLANE, THE STUDENT PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE, AND THE STUDENT PILOT'S LACK OF FLYING EXPERIENCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO95LA060
- Event ID
- 20001207X03632
- Case number
- BFO95LA060
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1995-06-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f550761332d898057137118bcf8a16f9548e6bfb5fc71db8e1320635b0e3e838; retrieved 2026-09-21T13:14:36.410Z.