SEA99LA067 · Grumman G-164B
Grumman G-164B · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From Okanogan, WA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA99LA067
- 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
Grumman G-164B
- Aircraft type
- Grumman G-164
- 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
- N6861K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Okanogan, WATo 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- 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
- Fuel system, carburetor › Malfunction
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While maneuvering over an orchard that he was preparing to spray, the pilot flew through a sudden downdraft which pushed him up against his seat belt and shoulder straps. About two seconds later, the engine quit and could not be started. The pilot elected to attempt the forced landing in an alfalfa field that was straight ahead of him. The aircraft initially touched down in the alfalfa, but bounced back into the air and touched down a second time in an area that had been freshly plowed. The main gear sank into the soft dirt and the aircraft nosed over. During the post-accident engine inspection, the engine would not start until the carburetor had been struck a couple of time with a hammer. After the carburetor was jarred by the hammer, the engine started and was able to be test run. Disassembly of the carburetor did not reveal whether the float had stuck, an orifice had been temporarily blocked, or whether there had been some other malfunction.
Probable cause
A malfunctioning carburetor. Factors include a downdraft, and the soft dirt in a newly plowed field.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA99LA067
- Event ID
- 20001212X18891
- Case number
- SEA99LA067
- 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: 977bcaeaa25e9bbfc3882726da8d003ef37e24fc297c7f7e716701337b7c92c3; retrieved 2026-09-22T15:11:41.985Z.