ANC04LA003 · Fairchild 42
Fairchild 42 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Anderson Lake Airport (0AK1) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC04LA003
- 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
Fairchild 42
- Aircraft type
- Fairchild 42
- 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
- N106M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Anderson Lake Airport (0AK1), Wasilla, AKTo 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 · 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 (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fuel system, carburetor float › Cracked
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, 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 accident pilot, a certified aircraft mechanic, reported the airplane was in cruise flight when the engine had a total loss of engine power. Emergency procedures failed to restart the engine, and the pilot selected an airstrip for an emergency landing site. The airplane was unable to reach the airstrip, and collided with trees. Postaccident inspection of the engine disclosed a leaking carburetor. The leaking carburetor was removed, and replaced with a serviceable carburetor. The engine started and ran without any observed deficiencies. The leaking carburetor was disassembled, and the metal float was found to be cracked. The metal float contained 2.4 ounces of fuel. The pilot noted that he had recently purchased the carburetor from an aircraft mechanic, and that he had requested the carburetor to be overhauled prior to installation on the accident airplane. The mechanic stated he did not perform the carburetor float leak check because he only de-preserved the carburetor, and did not overhaul the carburetor. The carburetor had been installed on the airplane about 3 flight hours prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The inadequate inspection of the carburetor by the aircraft mechanic who had recently worked on the carburetor, which failed to detect a cracked float, resulting in a total loss of engine power during cruise flight. A factor associated with the accident was the lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC04LA003
- Event ID
- 20031023X01804
- Case number
- ANC04LA003
- 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: c364efb4af9668b09f2ff177f4f1bf8b55276f2809dc711b008314a684849242; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:20:55.392Z.