CHI92LA273 · Alon 415-A2
Grant City Flying Club Alon 415-A2 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Rolla Downtown Airport (RLA) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI92LA273
- 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
Alon 415-A2
- Aircraft type
- Alon 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
- N6555Q
- Operator
- Grant City Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rolla Downtown Airport (RLA), Grant City, MOTo 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
- En route · descent
- 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)
- 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 › Carburetor heat, not used
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT INITIATED A CRUISE DESCENT TOWARD THE DESTINATION AIRPORT. SHORTLY AFTER REDUCING POWER THE ENGINE BEGAN TO RUN ROUGH, ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, AND THEN STOPPED RUNNING AS THE AIRPLANE REACHED THE PILOT'S PREDETERMINED LOWER ALTITUDE. THE AIRPLANE PERFORMED A FORCED LANDING IN A FIELD OF MILO CROPS APPROXIMATELY 1,000 FEET NORTH OF THE AIRPORT BOUNDARY. SUBSEQUENT INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE PILOT DID NOT APPLY CARBURETOR HEAT BEFORE REDUCING THE AIRPLANE'S POWER AT THE START OF THE DESCENT. AN ON SCENE INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE AIRPLANE HAD APPROXIMATELY HALF ITS NORMAL FUEL LOAD. THE AIRPLANE WAS OPERATING ON AUTO GAS WITHOUT AN STC. THE PILOT CONFIRMED THIS AND SAID HE WAS NOT AWARE OF THE REQUIREMENT TO HAVE AN AUTO GAS STC. THE AIRPLANE WAS OUT OF ITS REQUIRED 14 CFR PART 91 ANNUAL INSPECTION BY THREE YEARS. THE NEAREST FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION CERTIFIED WEATHER REPORTING STATION WAS 57 NAUTICAL MILES SOUTH OF THE ACCIDENT SITE. THE TEMPERATURE/DEW POINT FOR THAT LOCATION WAS 65 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT AND 49 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT RESPECTIVELY. THESE CONDITIONS ARE CONDUCIVE FOR THE FORMATION OF CARBURETOR ICING.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO USE CARBURETOR HEAT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI92LA273
- Event ID
- 20001211X15658
- Case number
- CHI92LA273
- 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: 334bc1864fb28152be6fa9b0b15ef9313fa8dd94726e89fd95cfdea177875516; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:08:02.259Z.