CHI90LA259 · Luscombe 8A
Luscombe 8A · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Erie Air Park (3H5) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI90LA259
- 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
Luscombe 8A
- Aircraft type
- Luscombe 8
- 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
- N2229B
- Operator
- Stephen K. Raney · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Erie Air Park (3H5)To 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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)
- 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
- Proper touchdown point › Not possible
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was landing at a private grass strip. Witnesses described the approach as hot and high. The engine lost power when the pilot attempted to execute a go-around. The pilot landed long, applied maximum braking to avoid structures at the end of the runway, and the airplane nosed over. The investigation indicated that the carburetor heat control was jammed in the off position. The pilot stated that he pulled the carburetor heat control to the off position to cycle it, along with the mixture, during his unsuccessful attempt to restart the engine. He stated that he left the carburetor heat control in the off position to concentrate on the forced landing from a low altitude. The airplane was placarded with a caution that carburetor heat was required for takeoffs and landings. There was a slight risk of light carburetor icing based on temperature and dew point values. However, with the high atmospheric temperature (97 degrees), a sudden, maximum temperature drop of 60 degrees would have resulted in a carburetor temperature above freezing (37 degrees).
This report was modified on February 9, 2005.
Probable cause
the loss of engine power for undetermined reasons while executing a go-around with insufficient runway remaining for a forced landing. A factor in the accident was the structures at the end of the runway that the pilot was attempting to avoid.
This report was modified on February 9, 2005.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI90LA259
- Event ID
- 20001212X24222
- Case number
- CHI90LA259
- 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: 7f55692a9bb8bb5555b34f146b9286e1e8fedda3d84edbe22991629afbd07c0b; retrieved 2026-09-23T05:20:38.766Z.