BFO94LA001 · Univair ERCOUPE 415E ERCOUPE 41
Univair ERCOUPE 415E ERCOUPE 41 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Virginia Tech Montgomery Executive Airport (BCB) to Apalachicola Regional Airport (AAF)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO94LA001
- 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
Univair ERCOUPE 415E ERCOUPE 41
- Aircraft type
- Univair 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
- N94440
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Virginia Tech Montgomery Executive Airport (BCB), Blacksburg, VATo Apalachicola Regional Airport (AAF), APPALACHICOLA, FL
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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 › Throttle/power control, not possible
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
- Throttle/power lever, linkage › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that while cruising at an altitude of 3,500 feet mean sea level, he attempted to increase power. He said that at that point, he lost throttle control and the engine went to idle. The pilot executed a forced landing and collided with the top of automobile in a residential area during the landing. Because of the mountainous, forested terrain he said he was unable to reach a suitable landing area. An examination of the airplane revealed the throttle cable assembly fitting failed and separated from its housing which prevented the pilot from manipulating the throttle.
Probable cause
the failure of the airplane's throttle cable fitting due to undetermined reasons, which prevented the pilot from applying power above engine idle. A factor in this accident was the lack of suitable terrain for the pilot to complete a forced landing without damaging the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO94LA001
- Event ID
- 20001211X13696
- Case number
- BFO94LA001
- 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: 4375322be04954c338900e730deb52a961ae4657c961b11c3e76ebd0b11bc591; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:29:56.174Z.