MKC90DPG01 · Volksplane WE-1
Volksplane WE-1 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- MKC90DPG01
- 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
Volksplane WE-1
- Aircraft type
- Volksplane WE-1
- 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
- N3938
- Operator
- Richard L. Schorey · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED THAT A POWER LOSS OCCURRED AT ABOUT 200 FEET AGL AFTER TAKEOFF, FOLLOWED BY A 'STALL WITH INSUFFICIENT ALTITUDE FOR RECOVERY.' HE FURTHER REPORTED THAT THE 'MAXIMUM TAKEOFF CLIMB WAS AT LEAST PARTIALLY TO BLAME FOR LOSS OF CONTROL.' THE ENGINE WAS A MODIFIED VOLKSWAGON UNCERTIFIED POWERPLANT. FAA INSPECTORS REPORTED THAT THE ENGINE APPEARED TO BE DEVELOPING POWER AT IMPACT. NO CAUSE FOR A LOSS OF POWER WAS DISCOVERED.
Probable cause
THE POWER LOSS FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS AND THE INADVERTENT STALL. A FACTOR WAS THE PILOT'S MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE TAKEOFF.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MKC90DPG01
- Event ID
- 20001212X22781
- Case number
- MKC90DPG01
- 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: dbe910554e41b62f6372eebf41c331122ae4ca648721a2cccde80eadb3381bf0; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:44:22.588Z.