SEA04CA054 · Menefee RAF Vari-Eze
Menefee RAF Vari-Eze · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Bremerton National Airport (PWT) to Bremerton National Airport (PWT)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA04CA054
- 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
Menefee RAF Vari-Eze
- Aircraft type
- Menefee RAF VARI-EZE
- 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
- N200TZ
- Operator
- Allan E. Martin · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bremerton National Airport (PWT), Bremerton, WATo Bremerton National Airport (PWT), Bremerton, 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 · climb to 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
- Partial 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
- Stall
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
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 shortly after takeoff the aircraft developed a rough running engine. The pilot stated he turned back toward the departure runway, but was unable to land due to traffic on the runway. The pilot stated he entered the traffic pattern and continued to the south for a landing on the departure runway. The pilot said the airplane was low, slow and unresponsive to roll inputs after turning final. Shortly after turning final, the pilot reported that the airplane "pancaked" in, coming to rest in a grassy area adjacent to runway 19. The pilot later reported that he believed the rough running engine was caused by a fouled sparkplug. An FAA inspector inspected the airplane after the accident and reported that there was no evidence found to indicate a mechanical failure and the cause of the engine vibration was undetermined.
Probable cause
Failure to maintain airspeed while on final approach resulting in a stall. Factors include a rough running engine for undetermined reasons and rough/uneven terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA04CA054
- Event ID
- 20040421X00490
- Case number
- SEA04CA054
- 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: cd37e9c475cae6b36c7a39188c5c81b7deebe0c6e18a073195d6ed36906df116; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:16:29.359Z.