NYC05LA084 · Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) 415C
Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) 415C · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Hummel Field (W75) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC05LA084
- 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
Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) 415C
- Aircraft type
- Ercoupe (eng Research 415
- 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
- N2406H
- Operator
- Jerry Mayers
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hummel Field (W75), Saluda, VATo not recorded
- 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
- Mixture control, cable › Not secured
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, annual inspection, inadequate
- Owner/builder › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment
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 was departing from a 2,270-foot-long runway, and was about 100 feet above the ground, when it experienced a loss of engine power. The pilot attempted a forced landing to a field; however, the airplane struck a fence and a tractor, prior to coming to rest. Examination of the airplane by a Federal Aviation Administration inspector revealed that the carburetor mixture control cable was not properly secured. The carburetor mixture control arm was observed in the lean position, while the cockpit mixture control was in the full rich position. The airplane had been operated for about 35 hours since its most recent annual inspection, which was performed about one month prior to the accident. The airplane owner reported that the airplane had experienced several recent power losses since the annual inspection, and a work order dated after the accident listed discrepancies with the airplane, which included "mixture cable secured with zip ties and loose."
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to an unsecured mixture control cable, which was not properly secured by maintenance personnel during a recent annual inspection. Also causal was the airplane owner's continued operation of the airplane with known deficiencies.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC05LA084
- Event ID
- 20050520X00642
- Case number
- NYC05LA084
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2005-05-14.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 665d139df47132453ee32727d5f4c3697a1bda5c9a1f0f0cc84090acde98e8c2; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:56:26.402Z.