SEA06LA188 · Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) 415-C
Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) 415-C · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Trenton, FL to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA06LA188
- 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
Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) 415-C
- 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
- N3233H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Trenton, FLTo not recorded
- 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
- Partial 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 contamination; 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
- Fluid, fuel › Contamination, water
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After takeoff, when the airplane was about 20 feet above the ground, the engine surged between full power and almost no power. The airplane began to descend and the pilot attempted to maneuver toward an open field. However, before reaching the field one of the airplane's wings collided with a tree and the airplane cartwheeled into the terrain. A post-accident engine run and inspection found no failures or anomalies, but it was later determined that the pilot had introduced water-contaminated auto fuel into the aircraft's fuel system immediately prior to the flight. Although the airplane had an approved Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) to allow it to be run on auto fuel, the pilot did not rock the wings or allow any time for any water introduced along with the auto fuel to flow through the system to the low point before draining fuel from the low point sump. The water contamination in the auto fuel made its way through the system during taxi for takeoff, and eventually reached the carburetor just after the airplane lifted off.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power just after takeoff due to water contamination of the auto fuel added to the aircraft fuel system just prior to the flight. Factors include the pilot's inadequate preflight, no suitable landing area near the departure end of the runway, and trees along the flight path between the point where the aircraft lost power and the open field the pilot was trying to reach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA06LA188
- Event ID
- 20061004X01447
- Case number
- SEA06LA188
- 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: ccd8f0a92216ded52694e1f03a5149dee44e88fecc901a4176cf9ef0a7d3d2d3; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:40:45.431Z.