NYC97LA018 · Dubis TEAM MINIMAX TEAM MINIM
Dubis TEAM MINIMAX TEAM MINIM · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From 2B6 · MA to Pittsfield Municipal Airport (PSF)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC97LA018
- 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
Dubis TEAM MINIMAX TEAM MINIM
- Aircraft type
- Dubis TEAM MINIMAX
- 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
- N4335W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 2B6 · MATo Pittsfield Municipal Airport (PSF), Pittsfield, MA
- 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 contamination
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Contamination
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of North Adams, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the engine lost total power while in cruise flight at 2100 feet, and he attempted a forced landing. According to the pilot, when he made his approach to a designated field, he realized that he had overshot it. He then saw another nearby field, and headed for it. As he approached, he tried to pass through a clearing in a tree line bordering the field. As the airplane went through the tree line, its left wing hit a tree, which spun the plane around. The plane then landed in the Hoosac River. Examination revealed that the fuel was dark in color and contained particles of an undetermined composition. There was no provision for sumping fuel to check for water or other contaminants.
Probable cause
fuel contamination, which resulted in a loss of engine power. Factors relating to the accident were: the lack of a drain in the fuel system to properly check the fuel before flight, and the pilot's failure (or inability) to detect the contaminated fuel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC97LA018
- Event ID
- 20001208X07107
- Case number
- NYC97LA018
- 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: 499fa763d59c43e95e7f1509a250d8296515ef2bdea6ac17733475409526c4e1; retrieved 2026-09-22T20:46:27.737Z.