CHI06CA002 · Creed RV-4
Creed RV-4 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Mitchell Municipal Airport (MHE) to Roseau Municipal Rudy Billberg Field (ROX)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI06CA002
- 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
Creed RV-4
- Aircraft type
- Creed RV-4
- 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
- N149KC
- Operator
- Gregory L. Schultz · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mitchell Municipal Airport (MHE), Mitchell, SDTo Roseau Municipal Rudy Billberg Field (ROX), Roseau, MN
- 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 · climb to 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Fuel system, carburetor › Foreign material/substance
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
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 collided with rough terrain during an off airport forced landing following a loss of engine power. The pilot reported that the engine lost power as he was leveling off shortly after takeoff. The pilot stated that he switched fuel tanks, checked the magnetos and carburetor heat, and verified that the fuel pump was on, but he was not able to regain full power. The pilot reported that since he had "considerable altitude", he turned around to stay close to the airport. He stated that he initially thought he would be able to make it back to the airport until the rate of descent increased and he determined that he was not going to make it back to the airport. The pilot initially attempted to land on a highway, but because of traffic, he elected to land in a rough pasture. Post accident inspection of the airplane revealed that bolts used to attach an air filter bracket to the carburetor had penetrated the carburetor bowl. When the filter bracket and bolts were removed, fuel, pieces of metal, and silicone came out of two of the four bolt holes. The pilot purchased the airplane on the day of the accident. A review of the aircraft logbooks indicated an entry dated May 18, 1999, stated, "Replaced nose cowling and spinner to install Vans airfilter kit."
Probable cause
The mechanic's improper installation of the air filter assembly which resulted in foreign debris inside the carburetor. A factor associated with the accident was the rough terrain on which the airplane was landed.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI06CA002
- Event ID
- 20051104X01792
- Case number
- CHI06CA002
- 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: e92d36db3a854848d8dc9476483556b2986edaa3de20803c5577344d6da1ccd5; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:18:58.814Z.