SEA01LA045 · Alexander MA-5 Charger
Alexander MA-5 Charger · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Thompson Airport (WA61) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA01LA045
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Alexander MA-5 Charger
- Aircraft type
- Alexander MA-5
- 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
- N58LA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Thompson Airport (WA61), Spanaway, WATo 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
- En route · climb to 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
- Partial 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, not used
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After taxiing from the far end of the field and performing his pre-takeoff run-up check, the pilot experienced problems with his VHF radio and intercom. While he was attempting to correct the problems, he allowed the engine to idle in serious carburetor icing conditions for three or four minutes. After correcting the communications equipment problems, the pilot pulled onto the runway and took off without applying the carburetor heat to eliminate any carburetor ice that may have accumulated since the run-up check. After reaching an altitude of about 200 feet above the ground, the engine began to lose power. Because the loss of power made it impossible to maintain altitude, the pilot attempted a forced landing on a nearby golf course. Although the touchdown was successful, the main landing gear collapsed when the aircraft encountered rough/uneven terrain during the landing roll. A post accident inspection of the engine did not reveal any evidence of anomalies or malfunctions that would have contributed to the loss of power.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to apply carburetor heat prior to takeoff while operating in serious carburetor icing conditions. Factors include operating in serious carburetor icing conditions, and rough/uneven terrain in the area of the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA01LA045
- Event ID
- 20010214X00447
- Case number
- SEA01LA045
- 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: 4aa5ff3f943574e1985447fd69683a8ed786e78059816ad436138a1aa3a5850d; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:11:28.033Z.