ATL98LA029 · Lutz EAA BIPLANE P-2 EAA BIPLAN
Lutz EAA BIPLANE P-2 EAA BIPLAN · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Private airstrip to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL98LA029
- 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
- 1 · 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
Lutz EAA BIPLANE P-2 EAA BIPLAN
- Aircraft type
- Lutz EAA BIPLANE P-2
- 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
- N913AM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Private airstripTo 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 starvation; Stall
- 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 › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, not attained
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to a witness, the airplane reached an altitude of approximately 200 to 300 feet after takeoff, then the engine began to sputter. Another witness stated the airplane made a 180 degree turn back toward the runway before it entered a spin and crashed. According to another pilot, he flew the airplane for 35 to 40 minutes the day before, and the accident pilot flew 35 minutes on the day of the accident. The other pilot stated the front fuel tank held 14 1/2 gallons, and the fuel consumption was 8-9 gallons per hour. An FAA inspector stated that the fuel selector was set to the front fuel tank setting. The fuel lines were checked, and no fuel was found in the line from the front fuel tank to the engine. There was fuel in the line from the rear fuel tank. The airplane had been purchased by the pilot on 12/4/97 (18 days before the accident). A witness stated that he did not believe the pilot was comfortable in the airplane.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to ensure the fuel selector was properly positioned to a tank with adequate fuel before takeoff, which resulted in fuel starvation and loss of engine power; failure of the pilot to accomplish the emergency procedure (restart the engine using another tank) after the loss of power; and failure of the pilot to maintain adequate airspeed, while maneuvering for a forced landing, which resulted in an inadvertent stall and collision with the terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL98LA029
- Event ID
- 20001208X09265
- Case number
- ATL98LA029
- 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: a5995745b59a925edb1f38f4c1247f240b4cb50d2c1abfd4ba4ecc288b050002; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:43:18.899Z.