ATL91LA027 · Beech 23C
Beech 23C · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport (Lovell Field) (CHA) to Lebanon Municipal Airport (M54)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL91LA027
- 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
Beech 23C
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 23
- 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
- N5147M
- Operator
- Winchester, John L. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport (Lovell Field) (CHA), Chattanooga, TNTo Lebanon Municipal Airport (M54), Lebanon, TN
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Pilot in command › Carburetor heat, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE CRUISING AT 4000 FEET, THE ENGINE QUIT. THE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO RESTART THE ENGINE, BUT FAILED. THE AIRPLANE CRSHED IN A ROCK PIT WHERE IT SUSTAINED MAJOR STRUCTURAL DAMAGE TO THE UNDERCARRIAGE. FUEL WAS IN BOTH TANKS WHEN EXAMINED AT THE ACCIDENT SITE. THE AIRPLANE EXAMINATION ALSO FAILED TO DISCLOSE ANY MECHANICAL PROBLEM WHICH WOULD HAVE PREVENTED NORMAL OPERATION. THE ENGINE OPERATED NORMALLY DURING THE FUNCTIONAL EXAMINATION. HOWEVER, THE ICING PROBABILITY CURVE INDICATED THE POSSIBILITY OF CARBURETOR ICE FORMATION. THE AIRPLANE WAS EQUIPPED WITH AN OPERATIONAL CARBURETOR HEAT SYSTEM.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO USE THE CARBURETOR HEAT PROPERLY, WHICH RESULTED IN THE FORMATION OF CARBURETOR ICE, FOLLOWED BY A COMPLETE LOSS OF ENGINE POWER. FACTORS TO THIS ACCIDENT WERE CARBURETOR ICING CONDITIONS AND THE ROUGH AND UNEVEN TERRAIN AT THE CRASH SITE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL91LA027
- Event ID
- 20001212X24717
- Case number
- ATL91LA027
- 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: 410e2fb7bbac2eb16e1b9acccd63d0ede2178c60a528876c2a48ce639725ffe9; retrieved 2026-09-23T05:04:46.952Z.