FTW04LA124 · Aeronca 7AC
Aeronca 7AC · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Culberson County Airport (VHN) to Fort Stockton Pecos County Airport (FST)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW04LA124
- 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
Aeronca 7AC
- Aircraft type
- Aeronca 7
- 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
- N3708E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Culberson County Airport (VHN), Van Horn, TXTo Fort Stockton Pecos County Airport (FST), Fort Stockton, 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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 › Mixture, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 821-hour commercial pilot lost engine power while in cruise flight at 2,500 feet mean sea level approximately 25 miles west of his intended destination. While en route, he noticed the oil temperature gauge indicated 240 degrees (red line was 145 degrees). The pilot reduced engine rpm from 2,400 to 2,200, and increased the airplane's mixture setting. The oil temperature began to decrease. Shortly after, the engine suddenly began to lose power. The pilot increased the mixture setting to "full rich", and applied carburetor heat, but the engine continued to lose power. He was unable to maintain altitude and executed a forced landing to a service road on Interstate 10. Upon landing, the pilot was unable to keep the airplane straight due to the strong, gusting crosswinds and collided with a metal fence post and mesquite trees. Examination of the top and bottom spark plugs revealed the #2 and #4 plugs were oily, and the #1 and #3 plugs appeared white in color. The oil, which was changed approximately 8 hours before the accident, was dark in color. When asked how this accident could have been prevented, the pilot reported, "I probably leaned engine too much too long causing the oil temp[erature] to reach 240 degrees. Run aircraft more rich to provide better cooling to internal combustion chambers." Weather reported at an airport about 17 miles from the accident site were reported as wind from 130 degrees at 17 knots gusting to 24 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper leaning of the fuel/air mixture in-flight, which resulted in a loss of engine power. Factor were the wind gusts and the crosswind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW04LA124
- Event ID
- 20040517X00607
- Case number
- FTW04LA124
- 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: 7aa7a2b83e93c9b7bcf8b0437b1bfb3690d54b4834a280f55f5577add33e3a51; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:35:08.357Z.