SEA02LA168 · Nolley BD-5
Nolley BD-5 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Corvallis Municipal Airport (CVO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA02LA168
- 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
Nolley BD-5
- Aircraft type
- Nolley BD-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
- N50TX
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Corvallis Municipal Airport (CVO), Corvallis, ORTo 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
- 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
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a telephone conversation with an investigator from the NTSB, the pilot reported that the airplane began to lose power shortly after takeoff from the Corvallis Airport. He reported that he was unable to restore engine power and elected to perform an off-airport landing to a nearby open field. He reported that the airplane touched down hard and the gear collapsed. He also reported that he was unable to recall any specific engine instrument readings or warning lights in the cockpit before, during or after the power failure. The initial onsite investigation was conducted by an inspector from the Portland, Oregon, Flight Standards District Office (FSDO) on the day of the accident. During the examination the inspector noted that the left main fuel supply line, at the quick connect coupler, was disconnected. No damage was noted to the fuel line or associated coupler. A test run of the accident aircraft's converted Solar gas turbine engine was conducted at Apex Gas Turbines, Silverdale, Washington. The test was conducted with the engine mounted on a test stand. The engine was successfully started and run at multiple power settings. No operating malfunctions or anomalies were noted during the test run.
Probable cause
Fuel starvation resulting in a loss of engine power during the aircraft's initial climb. A disconnected fuel line was a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA02LA168
- Event ID
- 20020912X01595
- Case number
- SEA02LA168
- 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: 0508f0eb0c5febc58db345a133a445c94626d5487a37287ef095bf4125153f9a; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:35:11.099Z.