CHI03LA192 · Debay Dragonfly Mark II
Debay Dragonfly Mark II · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Flying Cloud Airport (FCM) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI03LA192
- 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
Debay Dragonfly Mark II
- Aircraft type
- Debay DRAGONFLY MARK
- 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
- N25JD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Flying Cloud Airport (FCM), Eden Prairie, MNTo 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
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment, intentional
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was seriously injured and the experimental amateur-built airplane was destroyed when it impacted trees and terrain during a forced landing following a loss of engine power after takeoff. The amateur-built airplane was powered by a Volkswagen derived automobile engine with capacitive discharge ignition and a slide type carburetor. According to the manufacturer, the carburetor is not susceptible to carburetor icing because it does not incorporate a venturi. During an interview, the pilot stated that he had aircraft control during the forced landing. He stated that he had previous problems with the carburetor, and his internet website also listed problems, repairs and modifications made to the carburetor. The website indicated that the carburetor needle had been replaced, the carburetor slide had been modified and the throttle cable had been replaced. The website indicated that the mixture was "sensitive" and leaning was required in cruise flight or the "engine sputters from being too rich!" The website also states that the mixture during landing rollout "seems quite rich and [the engine] likes to die out" A section of the website titled "Repairs / Improvements to be made but are not stopping flight", listed "Continue to refine mixture / carb settings" as a listed item. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the engine could be rotated, valve train continuity was confirmed and each cylinder produced "thumb compression." The ignition system was not tested. The linkages to the carburetor were damaged during the impact; however, no pre-impact defects could be found.
Probable cause
The pilot's intentional operation of the airplane with a known deficiency with regard to an improper carburetor calibration that led to the loss of engine power. The improperly calibrated carburetor and the trees were contributing factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI03LA192
- Event ID
- 20030707X01024
- Case number
- CHI03LA192
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2003-07-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b3f33a28743723fa2a415dacf162115a6e9343fa72cf9ee322f82c9c251a0069; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:25:56.692Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: damage. The narrative states "the experimental amateur-built airplane was destroyed when it impacted trees and terrain during a forced landing".