CHI02LA091 · Aviat Pitts S-2B
Aviat Pitts S-2B · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Lawrence J Timmerman Airport (MWC) to Lawrence J Timmerman Airport (MWC)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI02LA091
- 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
Aviat Pitts S-2B
- Aircraft type
- Aviat PITTS S-2B
- 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
- N29RG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lawrence J Timmerman Airport (MWC), Milwaukee, WITo Lawrence J Timmerman Airport (MWC), Milwaukee, WI
- 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
- 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
- Pole
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Milwaukee, WI, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The airplane experienced a total loss of engine power approximately three minutes after departure and the pilot performed a forced landing into an agricultural field. During the forced landing, the airplane impacted a telephone pole. During a post-accident inspection the engine was started and ran without anomalies between 600 and 800 rpm. The engine was not run at a higher rpm due to vibrations caused by the bent propeller. The engine responded to throttle control inputs and the engine was shut down using the mixture control. The propeller was removed, straightened, and reinstalled on the engine. The engine was subjected to a static power-run and operated with no anomalies at 2,500 rpm for approximately 10 minutes. No anomalies were found with the fuel system and/or engine that could be associated with any preexisting condition that would have precluded the normal operation of the engine.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons. A factor in the accident was the telephone pole.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI02LA091
- Event ID
- 20020320X00367
- Case number
- CHI02LA091
- 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: 29f99421ac3c152a368b2fb9e9ff7d1bc0c717ddef85661d6559abc8bc5c253c; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:46:00.014Z.