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MIA99LA151 · Boone RV6

9 May 1999 · Apalachicola, FL, United States

Boone RV6 · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering

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Event

NTSB case
MIA99LA151
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

Boone RV6

Aircraft type
Boone RV6
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
N34C
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From not recordedTo 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
Maneuvering
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
Tree(s)
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

  • Reason for occurrence undetermined

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilot said that after lift-off the airplane was accelerated to 75 knots and was climbed to 500 feet, at which time he began a left turn and set the power to 2500 rpm, and 25 inches manifold pressure. About that time the engine began losing power and he turned back to the field complex. He said, 'the engine quit...and [I] tried to maintain about 70 to 75 knots. At this time I was extremely busy maintaining aircraft control and trying to steer the aircraft to the airport clearing...it became apparent that I was not going to make the clearing I stalled the airplane into the top of pine saplings at about 45 knots or so. After the aircraft came to rest I turned all switches off and rotated the fuel selector off.' The engine was test run under the supervision of the FAA, after it was removed from the crash site. According to the FAA inspector, '...the engine started and was run for 30 minutes...the maximum rpm achieved was 2460 rpm (static) when the mixture control was placed in the fully leaned position. The engine would not exceed 2000 rpm (static) when [the] mixture control was in the full rich position.' The fuel selector valve showed evidence of internal failure, but when used in the post accident engine run, it did not cause engine failure, the carburetor was setup and functioned properly, but due to the amount and location of rust found internally, the possibility existed that it could have affected engine operation, the airplane had sufficient fuel onboard for the intended flight, the specific cause for failure of the engine after takeoff could not be positively determined.

Probable cause

A loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record MIA99LA151
Event ID
20001212X18840
Case number
MIA99LA151
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: 52dcd209e198082dc70e8180fc4a9f5559f0d6cfb1c38f16a2b12fe16d3df9c4; retrieved 2026-09-22T15:16:30.182Z.