FTW97LA240 · Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) ERCOUPE 415-C ERCOUPE 41
Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) ERCOUPE 415-C ERCOUPE 41 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From F61 · Pauls Valley, OK to Aero Valley Airport (52F)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA240
- 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
Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) ERCOUPE 415-C ERCOUPE 41
- Aircraft type
- Ercoupe (eng Research ERCOUPE 415
- 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
- N2308H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From F61 · Pauls Valley, OKTo Aero Valley Airport (52F), Roanoke, TX
- 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a forced landing following a loss of engine power, the airplane collided with a power line and then impacted the ground. The pilot reported that he noticed the engine was not producing full power during the initial takeoff climb; however, he elected to proceed on the cross country flight. The engine continued to lose power, and about 30 minutes after takeoff, the power available was no longer sufficient to maintain altitude. The pilot attempted to land in the median of an interstate highway and did not see the power line crossing the interstate. Examination of the airplane revealed that the mixture control arm on the carburetor was not hooked up to the cockpit control cable and was free to move. However, the mixture control system on this model carburetor does not incorporate an idle cutoff, and the pilot reported that prior to the accident, he had flown the airplane 58 hours with the mixture control inoperative. No other discrepancies were noted which would have resulted in a loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from the power line. Factors were his improper decision to continue the flight after he noted a loss of engine power during initial takeoff climb and the loss of engine power for an undetermined reason.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA240
- Event ID
- 20001208X08137
- Case number
- FTW97LA240
- 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: b460b39f393d3a52140d547b6ffe68848c69d0f9c84e894147e78e4afbaa2bf5; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:00:22.978Z.