CHI05LA094 · Tschida Glastar
Tschida Glastar · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Kendallville Municipal Airport (C62) to C62
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI05LA094
- 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
Tschida Glastar
- Aircraft type
- Tschida GLASTAR
- 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
- N5DK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kendallville Municipal Airport (C62), Kendallville, INTo C62
- 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 · VFR pattern downwind
- 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
- 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
- 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 › Flow restricted
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Fuel system › Foreign material/substance
- Fuel system, filter › Obstructed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The amateur-built experimental airplane was substantially damaged when it lost engine power after takeoff. The pilot was in the traffic pattern and attempted to execute a forced landing on the departure runway. However, the glide path was not sufficient to reach the runway and the airplane impacted a road and ditch adjacent to the airport. This was the first flight of the airplane. The pilot was the owner and builder of the aircraft. The pilot stated that after takeoff, he experienced a "very quick" 8-knot reduction in airspeed. The loss in airspeed was followed by a reduction in engine exhaust gas temperature (EGT) of about 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The pilot noted that the loss of airspeed felt like "someone momentarily deployed a speed brake but the airspeed remained at the lower speed." He recalled that the fuel pressure indicated 10 pounds per square inch (psi) at that time. The pilot stated that when he reached a point abeam the end of the runway and began a 180-degree turn to final approach for landing, a second airspeed reduction occurred. He reported that while maintaining a 65-knot glide speed, the glide path would not allow a landing on the runway. The pilot reported that the field adjacent to the airport was too small to permit a safe landing. Because there was no traffic on the road adjoining the airport, he elected to dive toward it in an effort to maintain enough airspeed to pull up and land in a grass area off the end of the runway. However, the airplane's nose wheel caught the edge of the roadway and the aircraft slid across the road and into a ditch. A post-accident inspection revealed that a piece of silicone rubber sealant obstructed the inlet of the internal engine fuel filter. The pilot/builder reported that to the best of his knowledge the sealant material was not used in the construction of the airplane and he was unsure of the source. In addition, a Federal Aviation Administration inspector examined the airplane. He noted that several bends in the fuel lines were flattened and did not have a uniform cross-section at those locations.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to fuel starvation as a result of the fuel flow restriction at the internal engine fuel filter due the presence of the silicone sealant material. Contributing factors were the unsuitable terrain for a forced landing short of the airport property, as well as the road and ditch.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05LA094
- Event ID
- 20050428X00518
- Case number
- CHI05LA094
- 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: bd706adaea7e0e5ef0e5a01396447473017378fe78d70ffad30fd028cf49a619; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:05:32.715Z.