LAX00LA139 · Scovil KR-2
Scovil KR-2 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Whiteman Airport (KWHP) to Stellar Airpark (P19)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX00LA139
- 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
Scovil KR-2
- Aircraft type
- Scovil KR-2
- 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
- N73BP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Whiteman Airport (KWHP), WHITEMAN, CATo Stellar Airpark (P19), STELLER AIRPARK, AZ
- 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 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Fuel system, carburetor › Excessive flow/output
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, inadvertent use
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a forced landing in the median of an interstate highway, the airplane collided with trees. According to the pilot, past the halfway portion of his flight, he noticed the fuel gauge was reading too low. He decided to land at the next closest airport to troubleshoot the problem. Before he could reach the airport, the engine lost power. The pilot reported that the POSA fuel-metering device had a main fuel flow that is metered by a needle with a flat milled area along the length of it. The needle slides in and out of a tube, which changes the area through which the fuel feeds. During the mid portion of the flight, the needle rotated slowly resulting in a rich mixture. This increased the fuel consumption rate until the fuel tank was emptied. The pilot stated he inspected the POSA the day after the accident and confirmed that the needle had rotated 90 degrees from the original setting to a position where the airflow was creating a siphon effect.
Probable cause
The fuel control metering unit becoming disengaged and the inadvertent use of the fuel supply during flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX00LA139
- Event ID
- 20001212X20679
- Case number
- LAX00LA139
- 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: 3cd2741e6a830d1920d1757be736f9976e4cd042200130d2da9aecc0725c1b18; retrieved 2026-09-22T13:01:47.126Z.