NYC01LA032 · Navion A
Navion A · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From N73 · Vincentown, NJ to N14
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC01LA032
- 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
Navion A
- Aircraft type
- Navion A
- 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
- N675JM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From N73 · Vincentown, NJTo N14
- 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 turn to base
- 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)
- 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 contamination
- 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 › Distance/altitude, misjudged
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Lumberton, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
As the airplane was in the traffic pattern, the engine lost all power. The pilot turned towards the airport, and observed an airplane at the approach end of the runway. The airplane on the ground appeared to be "in position" on the runway and was not moving, so the pilot extended the flaps to full, and lowered the landing gear to slow the airspeed. Realizing that the increased drag would prohibit a glide to the runway, the pilot performed a forced landing to a field. The airplane had been in restoration for about 10 years. During the restoration, the fuel tanks were removed, drained, pressurized, and inspected before being reinstalled in the airplane. Upon completion of the restoration, the pilot sought out a mechanic to perform an annual inspection on the airplane; however, due to problems with the airplane, the mechanic refused to "sign off" the annual inspection, and the airplane was flown without it. Examination of the engine after the accident revealed a brown stained liquid, similar to automotive fuel, draining from fuel lines as they were removed. Debris was also observed in the liquid. The pilot stated that he had never put automotive fuel into the airplane; however, "dried auto fuel" may have been present in the fuel tanks, and loosened as new aviation fuel was added to the tanks. The engine had accumulated about 5 total hours since the restoration.
Probable cause
The pilot's misjudgment of altitude and distance to the runway while performing a forced landing after an engine failure. Factors related to the accident were the pilot's inadequate rebuilding procedures and maintenance inspection, which resulted in contamination of the fuel supply.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC01LA032
- Event ID
- 20001212X22329
- Case number
- NYC01LA032
- 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: fbe18c3a3392a375454250c431089c971eb0dff57de5cb67f0df485f7c25f2c3; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:20:13.422Z.