SEA02FA083 · Grumman G-44
Grumman G-44 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Boise Air Terminal/Gowen Field (BOI) to Kemmerer Municipal Airport (EMM)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA02FA083
- 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
Grumman G-44
- Aircraft type
- Grumman G-44
- 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
- N700BL
- Operator
- Patrick J. Coyle · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Boise Air Terminal/Gowen Field (BOI), Boise, IDTo Kemmerer Municipal Airport (EMM), Kemmerer, WY
- 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
- 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
- Fuel starvation; Wire, transmission; Tree(s)
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Fuel system, line › Blocked(total)
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that shortly after takeoff, the right engine lost power. The pilot stated that he did not feather or secure the engine but concentrated on trying to maintain the single-engine airspeed while attempting to return to the airport. The aircraft was unable to maintain altitude and collided with trees, power lines, and a single-story residence, coming to rest on the roof. During the post-accident inspection of the right engine, the gascolator filter was found covered with metal flakes. A mass amount of the flakes were accumulated at the top end of the filter and blocking the fuel line. Visually and under magnification, the metal flakes varied in size and shape of which many were corkscrew in appearance. The fuel lines downstream of the filter contained a trace amount of fuel. The right side fuel tank was drained. The sump contained debris to include additional metal flakes, screws, washers and pink colored sealant material. The aircraft had just been signed off for the annual inspection. Several maintenance discrepancy items had been found and fixed prior to and after the sign-off. The pilot also reported that during the cross country flight, the right engine had a tendency to stall out below 1,000 rpm. The aircraft flight manual for the accident aircraft indicated in the Emergency Procedures section that if an engine failure occurs after the airplane is airborne, and single engine climb speed is attained, the inoperative engine should be feathered and secured. The single engine rate of climb chart indicated that for the given conditions at the time of the accident, the aircraft should have been able to maintain a positive rate of climb.
Probable cause
A blocked fuel line that resulted in fuel starvation to the engine and the pilot's failure to follow emergency procedures. A contamination of metal flakes on the fuel filter, and an inadequate annual inspection were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA02FA083
- Event ID
- 20020529X00757
- Case number
- SEA02FA083
- 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, coordinates. 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: ab477c8f97a5f1f7a7d49575a763012fa070d2ff09cde1ad8169a086b1e1c317; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:39:17.680Z.