CHI01LA023 · Ercoupe 415-E
Ercoupe 415-E · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Illinois Valley Parachute Club Airport (81IL) to Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport (SPI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI01LA023
- 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 415-E
- Aircraft type
- Ercoupe 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
- N94176
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Illinois Valley Parachute Club Airport (81IL), ILTo Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport (SPI), Springfield, IL
- 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
- 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
- Fuel system, carburetor › Ice
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, encountered
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane encountered an in-flight loss of engine power and sustained substantial damage on contact with terrain during a forced landing in a plowed field. The pilot was uninjured. The pilot stated, "The takeoff went normal, power from engine was 2350 RPM at full throttle fuel pressure guage showed 4.5 "(p.s.i.). At 70 M.P.H. climb speed, the engine lost power at approx. 300 ft. A.G.L. applied carb heat, pumped the throttle, ck. elect. pump on O.K. - no power - turned 45 [degrees] landed. In field. (Plowed fld.)" An on-scene examination of the airplane revealed no anomalies. All the spark plugs were found covered with "black soot looking deposits." The temperature was 24 degrees C and the dew point was 16 degrees C. A copy of a Transport Canada Carburetor Icing chart was reviewed. The temperature and dew point were plotted on the chart and their intersection falls in the moderate icing - cruise power or serious icing - descent power area of the chart.
Probable cause
the carburetor ice and after takeoff, the unsuitable terrain the pilot encountered during the forced landing. Factors were the carburetor icing conditions and the plowed field condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI01LA023
- Event ID
- 20001212X22130
- Case number
- CHI01LA023
- 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: 4b4c586b8f504a684c77566c2d3046706a4f1c42649a60abb6ab92a4cc09067a; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:21:48.162Z.