ANC97LA091 · Piper PA-18
Piper PA-18 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Hector Silva Airstrip (BCV) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC97LA091
- 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
- N1386A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hector Silva Airstrip (BCV)To 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Dual student › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Fluid, fuel › Contamination, water
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A flight instructor (CFI) was providing a Biennial Flight Review (BFR) to the owner of a tailwheel equipped airplane. The airplane's last annual inspection had lapsed, and the owner's BFR was not current. The owner filled the airplane's fuel tanks from a personally owned fuel tank that contained a mixture of 25 percent aviation fuel and 75 percent automotive fuel. The owner said he drained the airplane's fuel tanks before the flight, and did not notice any contamination. An engine run-up was completed without any deficiencies, and the fuel selector was positioned to the left tank. After takeoff, about 400 feet above the ground, the engine began to lose power and run rough. The owner selected an emergency landing area in an area of small trees and brush. The airplane collided with several trees, and received damage to the fuselage and wings. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed water in the carburetor and the left wing fuel tank. An analysis of fuel from the owner's fuel tank failed the specifications for aviation gasoline.
Probable cause
water contamination in the fuel, the second pilot's inadequate preflight/preparation to ensure all water was drained from the airplane fuel tanks, and inadequate supervision by the first pilot (CFI). A factor relating to the accident was: the lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC97LA091
- Event ID
- 20001208X08047
- Case number
- ANC97LA091
- 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: 9db9c9bf9a823095c6c2e16843344976d865b61a77a0cde24221b6174e4f91be; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:24:28.792Z.