MIA90LA016 · Lake LA-4
Lake LA-4 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Apalachicola Regional Airport (AAF) to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA90LA016
- 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
Lake LA-4
- Aircraft type
- Lake LA-4
- 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
- N1212L
- Operator
- D'Alemberte, Talbot S. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Apalachicola Regional Airport (AAF)To Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY), New Orleans, LA
- 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 (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Engine assembly, valve, exhaust › Binding(mechanical)
- Engine assembly, valve, exhaust › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF AT ABOUT 100' AGL, THE ENG LOST POWER. AN EMERG LNDG WAS THEN MADE IN A SWAMPY AREA & THE ACFT, WAS DAMAGED. AN EXAM OF THE ENG REVEALED THAT THE #1 EXHAUST VALVE PUSHROD WAS BENT. ACCORDING TO THE ENG MANUFACTURERTHIS RESULTED FROM A STICKING EXHAUST VALVE, WHICH ALLOWED THE PISTON TO CONTACT THE VALVE. THE VALVE STEM CAP HAD FAILED & LODGED BETWEEN THE ROCKER ARM AND THE OUTER VALVE SPRING ASSEMBLY.
Probable cause
BINDING AND SUBSEQUENT FAILURE OF THE #1 EXHAUST VALVE. A FACTOR RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WAS: THE SOFT/WET (SWAMPY) TERRAIN CONDITION IN THE EMERGENCY LANDING AREA.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA90LA016
- Event ID
- 20001213X29659
- Case number
- MIA90LA016
- 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: ed65c9a1f7d868b9cececd7628747a0f43accabc70012e3ad268416012cd040e; retrieved 2026-09-22T00:00:42.837Z.