CHI99LA186 · North American NAVION L-17A NAVION L-1
North American NAVION L-17A NAVION L-1 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Anoka County-Blaine (Janes Field) Airport (ANE) to Rice Lake Regional Airport - Carl's Field (RPD)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI99LA186
- 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
North American NAVION L-17A NAVION L-1
- Aircraft type
- North American NAVION L-17A
- 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
- N109F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Anoka County-Blaine (Janes Field) Airport (ANE), Anoka, MNTo Rice Lake Regional Airport - Carl's Field (RPD), Rice Lake, WI
- 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
- 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 starvation
- 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
- Pilot in command › Fuel boost pump selector position, improper
- Pilot in command › Fuel management, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A loss of engine power was experienced approximately 30 minutes after takeoff. The airplane touched down in a corn field and contacted a ditch prior to coming to a stop about 400 feet short of the approach end of a runway. The pilot stated that the engine 'coughed' and he turned on the fuel boost pumps. The engine ran briefly prior to totally losing power. The pilot switched to the auxiliary fuel tank, but was unable to get the engine started. Post accident inspection revealed the tip and main tanks were empty, and the auxiliary fuel tank was full. The landing gear and flaps were extended during the forced landing descent.
Probable cause
the pilot's mismanagement of the fuel system in that he had the fuel selector positioned to a tank which did not contain sufficient fuel for the flight. Factors associated with the accident were the crop and the ditch which the airplane encountered during the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI99LA186
- Event ID
- 20001212X18946
- Case number
- CHI99LA186
- 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: eeabe0e8401b1d948040538b2bda87d0a854097ecb6a616f02f072a86c625c1f; retrieved 2026-09-22T14:49:49.174Z.