SEA03LA197 · Thompson Avid Flyer
Thompson Avid Flyer · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Roche Harbor Airport (WA09) to Harvey Field (S43)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA03LA197
- 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
Thompson Avid Flyer
- Aircraft type
- Thompson AVID FLYER
- 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
- N6611
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Roche Harbor Airport (WA09), Roche Harbor, WATo Harvey Field (S43), Snohomish, WA
- 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 · 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
- 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
- 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
The pilot reported that he departed with a full load of fuel (22 gallons) and flew approximately 50 nautical miles to his destination. He parked the aircraft on a slope with the right wing lower than the left and returned to the aircraft two hours later to find the right wing tank full and the "presence" of gas in the left tank and no evidence of fuel leakage. He reported that the 65 horsepower Rotax engine consumed about 5 gallons/hour and that he anticipated the fuel equalizing between the two tanks after his departure. Shortly after takeoff the pilot noted that the fuel was not equalizing between the two tanks and decided to divert. The engine ceased operating shortly thereafter and, after attempts to trouble shoot and restart were unsuccessful, he ditched the aircraft near the shore. The pilot reported that upon beaching the aircraft the right wing was observed to have about 15 gallons of fuel including some water. The fuel selector was a simple "ON-OFF" control and the valve was found open by an FAA inspector who examined the aircraft after its recovery. The inspector found no evidence of any water related pre-impact mechanical malfunction within the engine, and reported finding both carburetor bowls filled with auto gas with one or two drops of water in each.
Probable cause
A complete loss of power due to fuel starvation for undetermined reason(s).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA03LA197
- Event ID
- 20031001X01642
- Case number
- SEA03LA197
- 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: d40ea0a43385f2df10d10b4c2ec13ffd032ea6537331c66ef37d1261c821d6a2; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:26:46.855Z.