CHI89DEP03 · Tesmer Glassair SH-2
Tesmer Glassair SH-2 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Waterloo, WI (private airstrip) to RYV
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI89DEP03
- 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
Tesmer Glassair SH-2
- Aircraft type
- Tesmer Glassair SH-2
- 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
- N29HJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Waterloo, WI (private airstrip)To RYV
- 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
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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
- Fuel system › Undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE NEW, HOME BUILT, ACFT WAS ON ITS MAIDEN FLT. AS THE OWNER WAS PERFORMING STALLS ABOUT 1/2 HR AFTER TAKEOFF, THE ENG BEGAN RUNNING ROUGH. POWER WAS RESTORED WHEN THE PLT TURNED ON THE ELEC BOOST PUMP & SELECTED THE HEADER TANK. ABOUT 2 MIN LATER, AS HE WAS APCHG THE ARPT TO LAND, THE ENG LOST POWER AGAIN & WOULD NOT RESTART. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT WAS DAMAGED DRG AN EMERG LNDG. DRG AN EXAM OF THE FUEL SYS, AIR WAS FOUND IN THE PLASTIC FUEL LINE & NO FUEL WAS FOUND IN THE GASCOLATOR. THE FLOAT/NEEDLE VALVE WAS FOUND STUCK IN THE OPEN PSN & THE FLOAT SETTING WAS ABOUT 1/2 INCH OUT OF ADJUSTMENT. HOWEVER, THE OPEN VALVE SHOULD HAVE ALLOWED UNRESTRICTED FUEL FLOW RATHER THAN FUEL STARVATION. THE BUILDER HAD MODIFIED THE FUEL SYS BY INSTALLING AN EXTRA FUEL FILTER. THE EXTRA FUEL FILTER WAS INSTALLED IN THE PLASTIC FUEL LINE & WAS IN ADDITION TO THE SCREENS IN THE GASCOLATOR & THE CARBURETOR INLET.
Probable cause
LACK FUEL FLOW TO THE ENGINE (FUEL STARVATION) DUE TO AN UNDETERMINED FUEL SYSTEM PROBLEM.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI89DEP03
- Event ID
- 20001213X28052
- Case number
- CHI89DEP03
- 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: 275addfce026e6aa5748e50fb4cb0ce9ffa87879ac1f8c568026aa849d2fa658; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:39:16.996Z.