FTW04LA119 · Holmes RV-6A
Holmes RV-6A · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From 7TA8 · Boerne, TX to Boerne Stage Field (5C1)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW04LA119
- 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
Holmes RV-6A
- Aircraft type
- Holmes RV-6
- 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
- N65RV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 7TA8 · Boerne, TXTo Boerne Stage Field (5C1), San Antonio, TX
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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 1,591-hour pilot reported that prior to the accident flight, he performed a preflight check verifying the fuel levels in each wing tank using a metered stick. After departure, upon reaching a cruise altitude of 2,500 feet msl, he started a turn to the north, and the engine quit. The pilot turned on the electric boost pump, noticed a suitable field for landing, and continued the turn to the field. After leveling the wings on final approach to the field, the engine "came back on" and the pilot terminated the forced landing. A few seconds later, the engine began "sputtering," forcing him to lower the nose to maintain airspeed as the airplane descended into trees. The reason for the loss of engine power was not determined.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons. A contributing factor was the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW04LA119
- Event ID
- 20040505X00559
- Case number
- FTW04LA119
- 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: 0fc8e72175e4fbeda8f34d9a8e630243750cf8f599cdab683d39d191428a4974; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:15:11.224Z.