NYC03FA197 · Cessna U206F
Folsom's Air Service Cessna U206F · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Greenville, ME (no airport) to Greenville Seaplane Base (52B)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC03FA197
- 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
- 3 · 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
Cessna U206F
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- N755FA
- Operator
- Folsom's Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Greenville, ME (no airport)To Greenville Seaplane Base (52B), Greenville, ME
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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; 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
- Pilot in command › Fuel management, improper
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 was to transport six fishermen from a pond, back to a seaplane base on a lake; which was an approximate 5-minute flight in the Cessna U206F floatplane. Due to weight concerns, the pilot carried limited fuel. After the first group of three fishermen was flown to the seaplane base, the pilot departed solo to pick up the second group of three. He departed with approximately 4 gallons of avgas in the left wing, 10 gallons in the right wing, with the fuel selector positioned to the left tank. After landing on the pond, the pilot forgot to move the fuel selector to the right tank. The last three fishermen boarded with one garbage bag full of empty cans. The pilot then conducted a step turn with 20 degrees of flaps selected, and initiated a takeoff with the fuel selector remaining on the left tank. About 200 feet agl, above all obstacles, the pilot reduced the throttle to 30 inches of manifold pressure. At that time, the engine sputtered and lost all power. The pilot activated the electric fuel pump, positioned the fuel selector to the right tank, and initiated a right turn back toward the pond. As the airplane began to strike trees, the engine regained power, but the airplane impacted terrain and came to rest inverted. After the accident, the pilot stated that he mismanaged the fuel supply.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper fuel management by which he failed to position the fuel selector in the proper position and resulted in fuel starvation during the initial climb.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC03FA197
- Event ID
- 20030924X01581
- Case number
- NYC03FA197
- 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: 418b9e1fce61c3254781ffe04735601435e65a4e7db6927e56c92c487c785850; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:57:27.323Z.