NYC00LA087 · Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) 415-C
Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) 415-C · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From UCA · Utica, NY to Griffiss International Airport (RME)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC00LA087
- 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
Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) 415-C
- Aircraft type
- Ercoupe (eng Research 415
- 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
- N3719H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From UCA · Utica, NYTo Griffiss International Airport (RME)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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 › Mixture, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed and flew to his intended destination to conduct some touch-and-go landings. The weather was 'excellent VFR,' and the winds were from the northeast approximately 12 knots. The first touch-and-go to runway 33 was completed without incident. On the second touch-and-go, at 300 feet agl, the pilot inadvertently selected the mixture control to off. Realizing the error, the pilot elected to continue the approach without trying to restart the engine because of altitude remaining. The airplane developed a 'high' rate of descent, and with insufficient time and altitude to regain 'adequate' airspeed, the pilot unsuccessfully attempted to flare the airplane for touchdown. The airplane impacted the runway approximately 10 degrees nose down, and 50 knots. The pilot secured the airplane's systems. Then, both he and his passenger exited the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot inadvertently selecting the mixture control to off, resulting in a total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC00LA087
- Event ID
- 20001212X20715
- Case number
- NYC00LA087
- 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: 2b1c59d2b2ba1824b2cee788cef0fc4f9c756836a3ad12c15f74bedf0df2d4f1; retrieved 2026-09-22T13:06:00.768Z.