CHI05LA023 · Taylorcraft BC12-D
Taylorcraft BC12-D · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Wasta, SD (private airstrip) to Wasta, SD (private airstrip)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI05LA023
- 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
- 1 · 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
Taylorcraft BC12-D
- Aircraft type
- Taylorcraft BC12
- 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
- N39971
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wasta, SD (private airstrip)To Wasta, SD (private airstrip)
- 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
- Approach
- 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)
- 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
- Fuel starvation; 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Fuel system, fuel shutoff › Activated
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Fuel system, 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 airplane impacted terrain after suffereing a loss of engine power followed by a loss of control. The student pilot was returning to land at his farm field when the accident occurred. A witness reported seeing the airplane's wing "wobble" when it was at an altitude of about 300 feet above the ground prior to it descending to impact. He stated he was in a vehicle at the time and was unable to tell if the engine was operating. The accident occurred at sunset and the airplane was not equipped with any cockpit lighting. Post accident examination of the airplane revealed it impacted the terrain in a nose down, left wing low attitude. One of the wooded propeller blades was shattered and the other was intact. The mixture control was in and the pushpull type fuel shutoff valve was pulled to the off position. The fuel shutoff valve was bent upward and formed around the instrument panel. The carburetor heat control was pushed in. Airworthiness Directive (AD) 51-09-03 applied to the accident airplane. The AD stated that a safety device must be installed on the fuel shutoff valve to prevent inadvertent operation of the valve while in flight. The safety device was installed; however, it was bent so that it was not covering the fuel shutoff valve. No discrepancies were noted during the engine teardown that would have prevented the engine from producing power.
Probable cause
The pilot inadvertently pulled the fuel shut off valve resulting in fuel starvation and a subsequent loss of engine power. The pilot also failed to maintain adequate airspeed which resulted in the airplane stalling.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05LA023
- Event ID
- 20041109X01792
- Case number
- CHI05LA023
- 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: 00185abe75d72f5efae16cedd8b6c56e2e6b59a67acd6c8bd1c543eea00e025e; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:12:27.734Z.