MIA06LA037 · Cessna P206C
Florida Skydiving Center Cessna P206C · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Lake Wales Municipal Airport (X07) to Lake Wales Municipal Airport (X07)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA06LA037
- 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
Cessna P206C
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- N8640Z
- Operator
- Florida Skydiving Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lake Wales Municipal Airport (X07), Lake Wales, FLTo Lake Wales Municipal Airport (X07), Lake Wales, FL
- 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
- 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
- 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
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 reported that shortly after reaching an altitude of 400 feet agl after takeoff, the engine quit suddenly. He immediately pumped the throttle two times, and turned on the auxiliary fuel pump, but this did not restore engine power. He made a hard forced landing in an industrial park near the airport. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed approximately 20 gallons of fuel in the left main fuel tank and 7 gallons in the right main fuel tank; no fuel contamination was found. Examination of the engine revealed crankshaft, camshaft, and valve train continuity. No discrepancies were noted with the ignition system. Examination of the fuel lines in the engine compartment revealed no fuel in the line from the throttle body fuel control unit to the fuel manifold valve, and no fuel was found in the fuel line from the mechanical fuel pump to the throttle body fuel control unit. The only fuel line that had fuel was the return line from the throttle body fuel control unit to the mechanical fuel pump. Bench testing of the fuel injection components revealed no evidence of failure or malfunction of any of the tested components.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power during takeoff-initial climb due to fuel starvation, which resulted in a hard, off-airport forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA06LA037
- Event ID
- 20060104X00003
- Case number
- MIA06LA037
- 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: 6ebc415cd77131da212c24edef13697475b182a0cfc3a576e7d68c452dde23f3; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:10:40.618Z.