SEA04LA051 · Piper PA-18
Piper PA-18 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Corvallis Municipal Airport (CVO) to Prineville Airport (S39)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA04LA051
- 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
Piper PA-18
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-18
- 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
- N2553S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Corvallis Municipal Airport (CVO), Corvallis, ORTo Prineville Airport (S39), Prineville, OR
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
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, who had been cruising at 7,500 feet while en route, had been in a gradual descent for about 10 minutes as he proceeded toward his intended point of landing. During the descent, he realized that the engine had lost power, so he switched fuel tanks, applied carburetor heat for about 20 seconds, and moved the throttle in and out. Since these actions did not restore power to the engine, he looked for a place to execute a power-off forced landing. Because there was no suitable smooth terrain in the area upon which to land, he slowed the aircraft and flew it onto the forested terrain in a landing attitude. During that sequence the aircraft collided with several trees. A post-accident inspection of the aircraft revealed that the wire from the carburetor heat control was no longer attached to the bolt in the fitting on the carburetor heat box actuation lever. Although the wire had come out of the hole in the bolt, the crush washer, the castle nut, and the cotter pin were all still attached to the bolt. The carburetor heat control wire housing was also found to be disconnected from its mounting point. According to the pilot, the carburetor heat was tested as part of his pre-takeoff check, and at that time there was a significant drop in rpm when the carburetor heat was actuated.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons. Factors include no suitable place for a forced landing, and trees in the area where the pilot found it necessary to attempt the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA04LA051
- Event ID
- 20040324X00362
- Case number
- SEA04LA051
- 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: 1a77cd03c72a17c4018e685b888b77de8c806212af376a11ae10174a150bf443; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:16:39.297Z.