MIA07CA033 · Ryan Aeronautical ST3KR
Ryan Aeronautical ST3KR · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Flying Tiger Field (FL54) to Lake City Gateway Airport (KLCQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA07CA033
- 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
Ryan Aeronautical ST3KR
- Aircraft type
- Ryan Aeronautical ST3
- 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
- N56434
- Operator
- John B. Gordon · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Flying Tiger Field (FL54), Worthington, FLTo Lake City Gateway Airport (KLCQ), Lake City, FL
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Throttle/power lever, push/pull rod › Disconnected
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 stated that the engine quit without warning and he had to make an emergency landing. He checked the fuel valve, the carburetor heat, and pumped the throttle but nothing seemed to help. During the landing, he was not sure if he clipped a tree during the approach and was slow to flare out, which they hit the ground hard causing him and the passenger to hit the instrument panel during the stop. The pilot recalled that the propeller was still turning during the impact. The pilot did not have any ideas why it quit. The pilot had been giving several rides prior to the accident flight with no problems. The inspection of the wreckage revealed that a short rod that connects the throttle control to the carburetor was lying disconnected inside the cowling. There were no marks on the rod, the bolt or the bracket that would indicate it was broken during impact. Once this rod is loosened, it would allow the engine to go to idle power.
Probable cause
a partial loss of engine power due to a disconnected throttle control push-rod, which resulted in a forced landing and collision with trees and the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA07CA033
- Event ID
- 20070201X00126
- Case number
- MIA07CA033
- 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: 577bee3b86e7fcad9bf4373e5397e1d966dfed6b1e03d01eaf21a30c49ae9565; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:37:49.399Z.