ANC00LA089 · Aeronca 11BC
Aeronca 11BC · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From FIRE LAKE, AK to THREE MILE LAKE, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC00LA089
- 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
Aeronca 11BC
- Aircraft type
- Aeronca 11
- 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
- N9359E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From FIRE LAKE, AKTo THREE MILE LAKE, 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
- 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
- Stall
- 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 › Carburetor heat, not used
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Wasilla, AK, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported he took off on the long axis of the lake with a right crosswind. As he turned to the left, the airplane descended rapidly and struck the water in a nose low, upright, attitude. Witnesses reported the seaplane had performed two landings prior to the accident. They described the airplane departing a third time, climbing just above the level of the trees, doing a 'u-turn,' and dropping into the lake. They said they heard engine noise until impact. The pilot stated there were no preaccident mechanical anomalies with the airplane, but he did note a partial loss of engine power, which he indicated might have been caused by carburetor icing. He stated he did not use carburetor heat. The ambient air temperature was 56 degrees Fahrenheit, and the dew point was 45 degrees Fahrenheit.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to the pilot's failure to use carburetor heat, and an inadvertent stall. A factor associated with the accident was the existence of carburetor icing conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC00LA089
- Event ID
- 20001212X21356
- Case number
- ANC00LA089
- 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 2000-07-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ce2320812fee0cbd89b24edc644c0fa20a187522c812c64d22503e1500b44e0a; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:09:45.188Z.