NYC01LA220 · Andre Mini Max 1500R
Andre Mini Max 1500R · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Saluda, VA (no airport) to Hampton Roads Executive Airport (PVG)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC01LA220
- 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
Andre Mini Max 1500R
- Aircraft type
- Andre MINI MAX 1500R
- 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
- N962JA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Saluda, VA (no airport)To Hampton Roads Executive Airport (PVG), Chesapeake, VA
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot descended from 5,500 feet to 1,500 feet, at a moderate cruise power setting, at 5,500 rpm. About 1,500 feet above the ground, the two cycle 2-cylinder engine lost all power, and the pilot performed a forced landing to a field. The pilot believed that the descent at cruise power created a lean fuel/air mixture. Examination of the engine revealed scoring on both pistons, which was directly in line with the exhaust. According to a representative from the engine manufacturer, that type of failure was indicative of a heat seizure, normally associated with an excessive exhaust gas temperature, exceeding 1200 degrees F. The representative assumed that the engine was operating in a lean condition. According to the manufacturer's engine manual, during cruise and descents, it was very important that to avoid creating a lean mixture condition with high rpm and low throttle opening. Additionally, the manual warned that the engine was subject to sudden stoppage, and conformed to no aircraft standards.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to follow the engine manufacturer's descent procedure, which resulted in a lean mixture condition and subsequent engine seizure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC01LA220
- Event ID
- 20010906X01884
- Case number
- NYC01LA220
- 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: 71c60e49b8537ce1dfadc3ee80f5854b3ef68e9979e152845ada371af96c027f; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:35:35.533Z.