NYC96LA109 · McCall WATCHA-MCCALL-IT WATCHA-MCC
McCall WATCHA-MCCALL-IT WATCHA-MCC · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Dart Airport (D79) to Dansville Municipal Airport (DSV)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC96LA109
- 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
McCall WATCHA-MCCALL-IT WATCHA-MCC
- Aircraft type
- Mccall WATCHA-MCCALL-IT
- 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
- N111MC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dart Airport (D79), Mayville, NYTo Dansville Municipal Airport (DSV), Dansville, NY
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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
- Company/operator management › Maintenance, annual inspection, not performed
- Company/operator management › Maintenance, inadequate
- Fluid, fuel › Leak
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Fuel system, line fitting › Loose
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot purchased the homebuilt airplane on the day of the accident. He examined the airplane, changed the oil, replaced the old gas with autofuel, and performed some ground taxing. About ten minutes after takeoff, at about 3,000 feet, the engine lost power. The pilot turned toward a large field; however, the glide ratio was lower than he expected, and he changed his forced landing area to a smaller field. After clearing trees, the airplane landed hard on soft plowed terrain. Examination of the airplane revealed two loose spark plugs, and no fuel in the lines, pump, or filter. An aluminum fuel line fitting at the fuel filter was found 'very loose.' The airplane had been flown about 6 hours since the airplane's previous annual inspection, which was performed about 3 years before the accident. A ferry permit had not been issued for the flight, and the pilot was not a certificated airframe and power plant mechanic. He had accumulated about 110 hours of flight time in single engine airplanes. His total flight experience, during the previous 90 days, was 2 hours flown in gliders and less than 30 minutes in the make and model of airplane.
Probable cause
the pilot/owner's failure to ensure adequate maintenance/inspection of the airplane; and a loose fuel line fitting, which resulted in a subsequent fuel leak, fuel starvation, and loss of engine power. Factors relating to the accident were: the pilot's misjudgment of distance and altitude, which resulted in a landing on unsuitable terrain; his lack of experience in this make and model of aircraft; and his lack of recent experience in powered airplanes.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC96LA109
- Event ID
- 20001208X05856
- Case number
- NYC96LA109
- 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: 3f9404d313f9e2b5cfa6930460480cc77867ce32c038191b52ba3d60dcec793a; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:49:58.761Z.