ATL91LA078 · Lewis CHALLENGER II CHALLENGER
Lewis CHALLENGER II CHALLENGER · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Lakeland Linder International Airport (LAL)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL91LA078
- 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
Lewis CHALLENGER II CHALLENGER
- Aircraft type
- Lewis CHALLENGER
- 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
- N283EL
- Operator
- Lewis, Eugene G. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Lakeland Linder International Airport (LAL), Lakeland, 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
- 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
- Partial 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 contamination; 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 › Contamination
- Ignition system, spark plug › Fouled
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, not followed
- Pilot in command › Maintenance, inspection, not performed
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
N283EL WAS THE THIRD AIRPLANE OF A FLIGHT OF THREE. THE OTHER AIRPLANES CLIMBED OUT WITHOUT INCIDENT, BUT AS N283EL STARTED ITS CLIMB, REPORTEDLY THE ENGINE LOST POWER. WITNESSES REPORTED THAT THE PILOT APPEARED TO HAVE STARTED A LEFT TURN AND CRASHED 180 DEGREES FROM THE TAKEOFF HEADING ON THE PARALLEL TAXIWAY. DURING THE WRECKAGE EXAMINATION WATER WAS FOUND IN THE CARBURETOR BOWL AND THE SPARK PLUGS WERE FOULED. THE PILOT HAD PREVIOUSLY REPORTED A ROUGH RUNNING ENGINE, BUT LATER REPORTED THAT THE PROBLEM HAD BEEN CORRECTED. ACCORDING TO THE OPERATIONAL LIMITATION FOR THE AIRPLANE, A CONDITIONAL INSPECTION IS REQUIRED ANNUALLY. THERE WAS NO RECORD OF A COMPLETED CONDITIONAL INSPECTION SINCE THE AIRPLANE WAS CERTIFICATED IN 1988. SUFFICIENT RUNWAY WAS AVAILABLE FOR A FORCED LANDING.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO PROPERLY MAINTAIN THE AIRPLANE IN ACCORDANCE WITH PRESCRIBED PROCEDURES WHICH RESULTED IN FUEL CONTAMINATION, FOULED SPARK PLUGS, AND A LOSS OF ENGINE POWER. THE PILOT ALSO FAILED TO FOLLOW NORMAL EMERGENCY PROCEDURES FOR THE LOSS OF ENGINE POWER AFTER LIFTOFF AND STALLED THE AIRPLANE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL91LA078
- Event ID
- 20001212X16723
- Case number
- ATL91LA078
- 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: 7eecda54ff76f5cbeddbcd061250962768eef5ee8764f2c382e8a8659225d79a; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:52:11.942Z.