ANC99LA076 · Taylorcraft BC-12
Taylorcraft BC-12 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Summit Airport (UMM) to Lake Hood Airport (Z41)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC99LA076
- 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
Taylorcraft BC-12
- Aircraft type
- Taylorcraft BC-12
- 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
- N43373
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Summit Airport (UMM), SUMMIT, AKTo Lake Hood Airport (Z41), 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
- 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
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was departing a private airport on the continuation of a cross-country flight. He reported the engine power began to decrease, varying from full power to almost none, and the application of carburetor heat produced no change. The engine was not running rough or sputtering, but was not producing enough power to climb above about 100 feet. He made a gentle bank to the left, gradually losing altitude, and made an emergency landing on soft, tundra-covered terrain about 3/4 mile southwest of the airport. During the landing, the landing gear was sheared off, the wing lift struts were bent, and the left wing was bent at the inboard end. The pilot said he always filtered his fuel through a chamois. Prior to his departure on the cross-country flight, he did not find any water in the fuel when he drained his fuel tanks. Following recovery of the airplane, it was inspected by an FAA airworthiness inspector. The inspector reported the carburetor control cables were attached, and operated normally. Fuel was present in the carburetor bowl, and in the lines to the carburetor. About four to five gallons of fuel were present in the header tank. Engine gear train continuity was established. The air filter was unobstructed.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for an undetermined reason.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC99LA076
- Event ID
- 20001212X18913
- Case number
- ANC99LA076
- 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 1999-06-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e693e05403994202406a1c8b1cc880a6e65a9da7b13a481902c916329d35f99c; retrieved 2026-09-22T14:51:21.743Z.