SEA05FA061 · Navion Navion H
Navion Navion H · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Lenhardt Airpark (7S9) to McMinnville Municipal Airport (MMV)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA05FA061
- 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
Navion Navion H
- Aircraft type
- Navion H
- 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
- N2512T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lenhardt Airpark (7S9), Hubbard, ORTo McMinnville Municipal Airport (MMV), McMinnville, 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
- Initial climb
- 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 pilot said, in a telephone interview, that he used a check-list to preflight the airplane, and he checked the fuel tanks for contamination. He said he started the engine with the fuel selector in the both position, and taxied with it in the left main position. He performed his engine run-up with the fuel selector in the right main position. The pilot said that as he took the active runway 02 for takeoff, he switched the fuel selector to the both position. Witnesses said that the airplane had just taken off, when the engine appeared to lose power. The pilot performed a forced landing into a Christmas tree farm. He was critically injured during the landing; he was not wearing shoulder harnesses. On June 21, 2005, the pilot submitted a written statement which said: "As I taxied to the departure end of Rwy 02 I cycled the fuel selector valve from L to R and back to Main with no interruption of engine operation." He further said that the airplane's engine run up was normal and the takeoff was normal until immediately after takeoff when the engine quit with no sputtering or surging. The engine mount was bent, the right wing, fuselage, and empennage were bent, wrinkled, and twisted. The engine was test run through its full power band. No preimpact engine or airframe anomalies, which might have affected the airplane's performance, were identified
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power immediately after takeoff for undetermined reason.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA05FA061
- Event ID
- 20050416X00467
- Case number
- SEA05FA061
- 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: cc9ff9b383de1163a95d519c5ee8694838577a8e332ebf5db8ae2a96543191d4; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:09:21.255Z.