NYC04CA002 · Lake LA250
Lake LA250 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water while standing
From Laconia Municipal Airport (LCI) to Norfolk International Airport (ORF)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC04CA002
- 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
Lake LA250 Possible conflict
- Aircraft type
- Lake LA250
- 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
- N64SF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Laconia Municipal Airport (LCI), Laconia, NHTo Norfolk International Airport (ORF), Norfolk, VA
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) start-up
- 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 control on ground/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Starting procedure, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
As the pilot attempted to start the engine, it became flooded. The pilot placed the throttle control lever in the "full forward" position, the propeller control lever to the "full forward" position, and the mixture control lever to the "idle cutoff" position. The engine started on the second attempt, and as the pilot pushed the mixture control lever to the "rich" position, the engine went immediately to full power. The pilot attempted to pull the throttle control lever back; however, he pulled the propeller control lever instead. The airplane began to roll forward, and pilot applied full braking. The pilot was unsuccessful in stopping the airplane, and it struck three parked airplanes before the engine stopped. Examination of the airplane revealed the throttle control lever was in the "full forward" position, the propeller control lever in the "full aft" position, and the mixture control lever in the "idle cutoff" position. No anomalies were noted with the throttle linkage or the braking system. According to the airplane's flight manual, the flooded start procedure included, "Clear by operating starter for 5 seconds with mixture at idle cutoff, throttle open, then use normal starting procedure. The normal starting procedure required that the throttle be "OPEN 1/8 TRAVEL." The pilot reported about 150 hours of experience in make and model airplane, none of which were in the preceding 90 days.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper starting procedure. A factor in the accident was the pilot's lack of recent experience in make and model airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC04CA002
- Event ID
- 20031120X01928
- Case number
- NYC04CA002
- 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: 040332403198d8940e6e98d2365b84fcad385b40765e62359059f5b15dc90d08; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:23:36.104Z.