MIA06LA118 · Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) 415C
Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) 415C · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Wakulla County Airport (2J0) to Wakulla County Airport (2J0)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA06LA118
- 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
- 2 · 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
- N99355
- Operator
- Gar Braun
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wakulla County Airport (2J0), Panacea, FLTo Wakulla County Airport (2J0)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Destroyed
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
The accident airplane's co-owner/pilot and a pilot-rated passenger had both been at a social function near the airport, and had departed on a short flight to demonstrate the co-owner's recently acquired airplane. The flight originated about 2125 and a short while later the airplane clipped trees at about the 20-foot level, and then descended, impacting the ground and burning just short of the runway. The fire largely consumed the airplane, but the absence of evidence of propeller rotation suggested that the engine ceased operating prior to impact. Post-accident engine examination did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal engine operation. The pilot's postmortem examination revealed evidence of the pilot having focal severe coronary atherosclerosis, and no evidence of smoke inhalation or obviously fatal injuries. There was insufficient evidence to determine conclusively whether or when a cardiac event might have occurred. Toxicology testing of specimens from the pilot suggested that he was intoxicated by alcohol at the time of the flight and had used marijuana within 10 hours of the accident. The pilot-rated passenger did not have a current medical certificate.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for undetermined reasons, which resulted in the airplane descending and impacting trees during the approach. A possible contributing factor was the pilot's pre-existing cardiovascular condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA06LA118
- Event ID
- 20060713X00931
- Case number
- MIA06LA118
- 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 2006-06-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c17e2f162fce07f6e003c93b6a8696e04e80d442c6e8d2074070542e20477d14; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:17:07.480Z.