NYC06CA068 · Cessna 180J
Cessna 180J · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during takeoff
From Bonebender Airport (41NY) to Middlebury State Airport (6B0)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC06CA068
- 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 180J
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 180
- 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
- N180HJS
- Operator
- Beth Schiller
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bonebender Airport (41NY), Essex, NYTo Middlebury State Airport (6B0), Middlebury, VT
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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 (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aborted takeoff, not performed
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 performed a pre-flight inspection of the airplane in her hangar. The temperature was below freezing and the hangar was unheated; however, the engine had been warmed with a pre-heater and an engine blanket. During the preflight inspection, the pilot did not see any ice crystals in the fuel sample. After startup, the airplane remained on the ground for "some time." The pilot leaned the mixture and applied carburetor heat "for at least 10 minutes" until just before takeoff, at which time, she noted the carburetor temperature to be 20 degrees C. She then secured the carburetor heat. During the takeoff roll, the engine would not attain full power; however it continued to operate smoothly. The pilot noted a less-than-normal manifold pressure, but wasn't sure of how much less. She also noted that the normal right rudder inputs were not required to keep the airplane going straight. About 2/3 down the 1,800-foot turf runway, the pilot became concerned about the engine power. She felt that "stopping was unrealistic" and that the airplane could take off and clear a hedgerow at the end of the runway. However, after takeoff, the airplane did not clear the hedgerow. The runway was frozen, with rutting, but there was no snow cover. The runway was owned by the pilot, and she had not previously established a go, no-go point. The airplane normally became airborne in 500-600 feet. Post-accident examination of the airplane by Federal Aviation Administration inspectors revealed no mechanical anomalies. In addition, the carburetor was removed, and examined at an engine overhaul facility where the mechanic "noted no conditions that would have prevented the carburetor from functioning." Utilizing ambient temperature and dew point readings at three surrounding airports, carburetor icing charts revealed no probability of icing due to low temperatures. The interpolated temperature and dew point at the nearest airport, about the time of the accident, was 6 degrees Fahrenheit and 0 degrees Fahrenheit respectively.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to abort the takeoff in a timely manner. Factors included a partial loss of engine power for undetermined reasons and an undefined go, no-go point.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC06CA068
- Event ID
- 20060325X00344
- Case number
- NYC06CA068
- 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: 3f5475edb3362656d34d17fab78b09dae762fcdc20064854877407a5375a67b6; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:07:06.083Z.