CHI85LA305 · Kauffman BD4
Kauffman BD4 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Y17 · ACME, MI to Y17 · AMCE, MI
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI85LA305
- 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
Kauffman BD4
- Aircraft type
- Kauffman BD4
- 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
- N115PK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Y17 · ACME, MITo Y17 · AMCE, MI
- 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 (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
- Terrain condition › Dirt bank/rising embankment
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Acme, MI, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT WAS ON THE SECOND FLT OF NEWLY CERTIFICATED ACFT AND HAD BEEN AIRBORNE APRX 10 MINUTES WHEN A TOTAL LOSS OF PWR WAS EXPERIENCED. UNABLE TO RETURN TO THE ARPT THE PLT LANDED THE ACFT IN AN OPEN FLD. DURING THE LANDING ROLL THE ACFT STRUCK A ROAD EMBANKMENT SEPARATING THE ENG AND GEAR FROM THE AIRFRAME. THE PLT REPORTED THE MIXTURE CONTROL WAS NOT SAFETY WIRED WHEN IT WAS RERIGGED JUST PRIOR TO THIS FLT. THE MIXTURE CONTROL BECAME DISCONNECTED DURING THE FLT RESULTING IN FUEL STARVATION TO THE ENG.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI85LA305
- Event ID
- 20001214X37057
- Case number
- CHI85LA305
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1985-07-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c0ea5a79f61094283c437b94ec4067fcd1b4ef157bf0439475d6e3b69f5245a6; retrieved 2026-09-21T17:12:43.993Z.