SEA00LA166 · Fairchild 24G
Fairchild 24G · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Cascade Locks State Airport (CZK) to 59S · Vancouver, WA
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA00LA166
- 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
Fairchild 24G
- Aircraft type
- Fairchild 24
- 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
- N4714
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cascade Locks State Airport (CZK), Cascade Locks, ORTo 59S · Vancouver, WA
- 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 · climb to 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
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While en route to his final destination, the pilot found it necessary to land at an alternate airport when he encountered rain, low clouds, and reduced visibility. After waiting on the ground for about four hours, during which it rained at least half the time, the pilot received a weather update that indicated he could continue on to his ultimate destination. After performing a run-up and waiting for two accompanying aircraft to depart, the pilot began his takeoff roll in what was reported as damp, humid air of about 68 degrees Fahrenheit. After climbing to about 200 feet AGL, the engine started to lose power, but because he was in a full-power climb, the pilot elected not to apply carburetor heat. Soon thereafter, the engine began to run rough, and the pilot initiated a turn back toward the runway. About the time he completed 90 degrees of the turn, the engine experienced a complete loss of power. A post accident inspection of the engine found no pre-impact anomalies or contamination that would have lead to a loss of power.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to apply carburetor heat after experiencing a partial power loss while flying under conditions conducive to the formation of carburetor ice. Factors include the presence of carburetor icing conditions and an expanse of water (Columbia River) off the departure end of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA00LA166
- Event ID
- 20001212X21870
- Case number
- SEA00LA166
- 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: 0818842322e237d98a8553ab1bcc48aebb4fc7cd5fc5d85abd27692f222df40c; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:34:31.988Z.