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NYC06LA086 · Diamond Aircraft Industries DA 20-C1

30 Mar 2006 · Clay Township, PA, United States

Diamond Aircraft Industries DA 20-C1 · Accident: loss of engine power en route

From Butler Farm Show Airport (3G9) to Port Meadville Airport (GKJ)

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Event

NTSB case
NYC06LA086
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

Diamond Aircraft Industries DA 20-C1

Aircraft type
Diamond DA-20
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
N346DC
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Butler Farm Show Airport (3G9), Butler, PATo Port Meadville Airport (GKJ), Meadville, PA
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 · 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
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
Tree(s)
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

  • Reason for occurrence undetermined

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

Approximately 5 minutes after takeoff, at an altitude of 800 feet agl, the engine rpm went from 2,000 to idle. The pilot applied full throttle and rich mixture; however, the engine remained at idle. He subsequently turned the electric fuel pump on. The engine then lost all power, and the pilot performed a forced landing to a field. During the approach, the pilot was able to restart the engine once, but it lost all power again. Examination of the wreckage revealed that there was adequate fuel in the fuselage fuel tank, fuel in the fuel line from the airframe to the engine driven fuel pump, and fuel in the fuel line from the engine driven fuel pump to the fuel manifold valve. Subsequent testing of the electric fuel pump on a test stand revealed that it was undamaged and flowed within specifications. A test run of the engine revealed that it experienced a normal start on the first attempt, without hesitation. The engine ran for approximately 30 minutes at different power settings, including idle to full power. In addition, the engine driven fuel pump was found to be intact, and flowed within specifications when placed on a test stand. No preimpact mechanical malfunctions were identified during the examinations.

Probable cause

A loss of engine power during cruise flight for undetermined reasons, which resulted in a forced landing and subsequent impact with trees.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record NYC06LA086
Event ID
20060408X00412
Case number
NYC06LA086
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: cb0bab61b31d472897ab566ecb31e7100c8f49a83c7d4c7da2bfb69b9805222b; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:59:36.241Z.