MIA93LA105 · Siegel GLASAIR III GLASAIR II
Siegel GLASAIR III GLASAIR II · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Zephyrhills Municipal Airport (ZPH) to Cincinnati Municipal Airport Lunken Field (LUK)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA93LA105
- 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
Siegel GLASAIR III GLASAIR II
- Aircraft type
- Siegel GLASAIR
- 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
- N540PS
- Operator
- Siegel, JR., Paul F. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Zephyrhills Municipal Airport (ZPH)To Cincinnati Municipal Airport Lunken Field (LUK), Cincinnati, OH
- 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
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Flow restricted
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Zephyrhills, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PRIVATE PILOT CONDUCTED A PRECAUTIONARY LANDING BECAUSE OF A ROUGH-RUNNING ENGINE. AFTER LANDING, THE GASCOLATOR AND FUEL INJECTOR NOZZLES WERE REMOVED, CLEANED, AND REINSTALLED ON THE AIRPLANE. THE FUEL SUMPS WERE DRAINED, AND AN ENGINE RUN-UP WAS CONDUCTED. ON INITIAL TAKEOFF CLIMB AT ABOUT 300 FEET AGL, THE AIRPLANE EXPERIENCED A PARTIAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER FOLLOWED BY A TOTAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER. A FORCED LANDING WAS CONDUCTED RESULTING IN AN IN-FLIGHT COLLISION WITH TREES AND TERRAIN. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE BY THE FAA REVEALED FIBERGLASS DUST IN THE MAIN FUEL HEADER TANK, TANK SCREEN, MAIN FUEL FILTER, AND UNDER THE DIAPHRAGM IN THE FUEL FLOW DIVIDER. THE ENGINE FUEL INJECTOR (BENDIX MODEL RSA10ED1) WAS PARTIALLY DISASSEMBLED. A PIECE OF PLASTIC MATERIAL WAS FOUND IN THE VENTURI PRESSURE CHAMBER SIDE OF THE AIR DIAPHRAGM OF SUFFICIENT SIZE TO BLOCK THE PASSAGEWAY TO THE VENTURI. TESTS SHOWED THAT BLOCKAGE OF THE PASSAGEWAY WOULD RESULT IN RESTRICTED FUEL FLOW.
Probable cause
CONTAMINATION (FIBERGLASS DUST) IN THE FUEL SYSTEM AND/OR A PIECE OF PLASTIC (FOREIGN) MATERIAL IN THE FUEL INJECTOR, WHICH RESULTED IN RESTRICTED FLOW OF FUEL TO THE ENGINE, LOSS OF ENGINE POWER, AND SUBSEQUENT COLLISION WITH TREES AND TERRAIN DURING A FORCED LANDING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA93LA105
- Event ID
- 20001211X12198
- Case number
- MIA93LA105
- 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: d156527476d9b2955c3d3d37359f94c39546189572437d1c050a4a18f337b132; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:58:56.879Z.