ANC91LA156 · Aeronca SEDAN 15AC
Aeronca SEDAN 15AC · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From MONTAGUE ISLAND, AK to Lake Hood Seaplane Base (LHD)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC91LA156
- 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
Aeronca SEDAN 15AC
- Aircraft type
- Aeronca SEDAN 15
- 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
- N1416H
- Operator
- Darin Applebury
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From MONTAGUE ISLAND, AKTo Lake Hood Seaplane Base (LHD), Anchorage, AK
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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 exhaustion
- 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 › Exhaustion
- Fluid, fuel › Leak
- Fuel system, cap › Not secured
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED HE SAW FUEL STREAMING FROM THE TRAILING EDGE OF THE WINGS. THE ENGINE BEGAN LOSING POWER, AND THE PILOT WAS UNABLE TO KEEP IT RUNNING THROUGH THE USE OF THE FUEL PRIMER. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE PLANE NOSED OVER DURING A FORCED LANDING ON MUD FLATS AND WAS DAMAGED. THE AIRPLANE'S ORIGINAL 145 HP ENGINE HAD BEEN REPLACED WITH A 200 HP ENGINE. THE ORIGINAL FUEL CAPS WITH INTEGRAL FUEL SYSTEM VENTS WERE STILL INSTALLED. THE WINGS OF THE AIRPLANE WERE NOT RECOVERED AND DISAPPEARED WITH THE TIDE; AS A RESULT, THE FUEL QUANTITY COULD NOT BE CHECKED. EXAMINATION SHOWED THAT THERE WAS NO FUEL IN THE CARBURETOR BOWL.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO ENSURE THAT THE FUEL CAPS WERE SECURE, WHICH RESTULED IN A FUEL LEAK AND SUBSEQUENT FUEL EXHAUSTION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC91LA156
- Event ID
- 20001212X18015
- Case number
- ANC91LA156
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1991-10-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 403582a5beb278d5636dd153a0882bec6025ad513c0661b6ce7e6de097af98da; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:38:40.816Z.