CHI06CA225 · Weatherly 620B
Weatherly 620B · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From SOY · Sioux Center, IA to Stronsay Airport (SOY)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI06CA225
- 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
Weatherly 620B
- Aircraft type
- Weatherly 620
- 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
- N9012P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From SOY · Sioux Center, IATo Stronsay Airport (SOY)
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Maneuvering · aerial application
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Fuel management, 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 experienced a loss of engine power while performing an aerial application turn and nosed over during the subsequent forced landing. The pilot reported that after maneuvering for approximately 1.5 hours he switched from the left fuel tank to the right fuel tank. The pilot stated that he flew another 15 minutes before the engine lost power during a left-handed teardrop turn. The pilot reported that the loss of engine power "sounded as if the fuel was starved away from the engine, such as the way it would on shut-down." The pilot stated that the engine "made about three or four burping revolutions, then quit altogether." The pilot reported that the airplane was at 200 feet above ground level when the engine lost power. The pilot stated that he advanced the mixture control to full rich, set the propeller to low pitch, and turned on the fuel pump. The engine did not restart and the pilot performed a forced landing to a soybean field. The pilot reported that the airplane nosed over during the landing rollout. Inspection of the wreckage showed that the fuel selector was positioned on the right tank. No fuel was found in the right tank, gascolator, or carburetor bowl. The interconnected left and center fuel tanks contained a significant quantity of fuel. The fuel samples collected were blue in color and free of any particulate or water contamination.
Probable cause
The pilot's mismanagement of the fuel system which resulted in the loss of engine power due to fuel starvation and his failure to maintain aircraft control during the subsequent forced landing. A factor to the accident was the soybean crop.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI06CA225
- Event ID
- 20061002X01436
- Case number
- CHI06CA225
- 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: 717376331093ad6db51de26d902e600958daf8ad66ba74970557afa77c096bd8; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:36:45.916Z.