ATL90DKG03 · Corben BABY-ACE
Corben BABY-ACE · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Chattahoochee Air Park (4GA6) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL90DKG03
- 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
Corben BABY-ACE
- Aircraft type
- Corben BABY-ACE
- 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
- N1034C
- Operator
- Ken Berger
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chattahoochee Air Park (4GA6), Griffin, GATo 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
- 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 starvation; Tree(s)
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Manufacturer › Fuel system, improper
- Operation with known deficiencies in equipment › Continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER TAKE OFF IN A CLIMB ATTITUDE, THE ENGINE OF THE HOMEBUILT AIRCRAFT LOST POWER. WHEN THE NOSE WAS LOWERED, IT RESTARTED, BUT WITH INSUFFICIENT ALTITUDE TO CLEAR THE TREES. A WITNESS WHO HAD PREVIOUSLY FLOWN THE AIRPLANE STATED THE ENGINE HAD QUIT WITH HIM UNDER SIMILAR CIRCUMSTANCES WHEN THE FUEL TANK WAS ABOUT 1/4 FULL. THE ENGINE RAN WELL AFTER THE ACCIDENT. THE FAA INSPECTOR EXAMINED THE ENGINE AND NOTED THAT THE FUEL TANK WAS MOUNTED DIRECTLY BEHIND AND LEVEL WITH THE ENGINE. WHEN THE FUEL WAS ABOUT 1/4 FULL, A HIGH NOSE ATTITUDE WOULD RESULT IN POOLING OF THE FUEL AT THE REAR OF THE FUEL TANK. SUBSEQUENTLY, THERE WAS INSUFFICIENT PRESSURE IN THE GRAVITY FED SYSTEM TO SUSTAIN ENGINE OPERATION.
Probable cause
AN IMPROPER FUEL SYSTEM (INSTALLED BY THE HOME BUILDER), AND CONTINUED OPERATION OF THE AIRCRAFT WITH A KNOWN DEFICIENCY, WHICH RESULTED IN FUEL STARVATION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL90DKG03
- Event ID
- 20001212X22840
- Case number
- ATL90DKG03
- 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: e52354c2b8c58c9fcbd5ab08c9dec85dad0ce5aa3703dbdb9ef4ffe09cdca792; retrieved 2026-09-23T06:29:05.041Z.