NYC02LA140 · Boeing Stearman A75N1
Boeing Stearman A75N1 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Samuels Field (BRY) to 1A0 · Chattanooga, TN
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC02LA140
- 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
Boeing Stearman A75N1
- Aircraft type
- Boeing Stearman A75
- 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
- N64567
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Samuels Field (BRY), Bardstown, KYTo 1A0 · Chattanooga, TN
- 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
- 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, water › Contamination, water
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
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 he performed a thorough preflight inspection of the airplane and after a 1 hour flight, he landed to refuel. He added 30.5 gallons of aviation gasoline to the airplane and performed another preflight inspection, which included draining fuel from the "belly strainer." The pilot performed an engine run-up and a normal takeoff; however, shortly after takeoff, when the airplane was about 300 to 400 feet above the ground, the engine began to lose power. The pilot performed a forced landing to a field. However, the airplane impacted the ground left wing down and bounced. The engine separated from the fuselage and the airplane came to rest on the main landing gear. Examination of the engine revealed debris in the oil screen, which consisted of large carbon and rust deposits. The spark plugs all showed signs of fouling due to carbon deposits and three of the outboard spark plug electrode gaps were "closed" due to debris lodged in the head of the plugs. There was a small amount of fuel in the carburetor. The fuel was "milky white" in color. The belly drain was sumped, and the fuel was found to contain "large" amounts of water. It was also noted that the wing tank drains were wired closed and could not be sampled.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight inspection, which resulted in fuel contamination and subsequent loss of engine power. A factor in this accident was that the wing tank fuel drains were wire closed and could not be used.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC02LA140
- Event ID
- 20020729X01241
- Case number
- NYC02LA140
- 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: 8422548812a6d9b885f0cd17dbadfb6ef3be9f643dc79598e0f5626ea3d2432a; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:40:05.450Z.