ANC07LA027 · Carris Avid Aircraft
Carris Avid Aircraft · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From 3X1 · Delray Beach, FL to 3X1 · Delray Beach, FL
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC07LA027
- 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
Carris Avid Aircraft
- Aircraft type
- Carris AVID AIRCRAFT
- 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
- N9174D
- Operator
- Charles K. Scherer · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 3X1 · Delray Beach, FLTo 3X1 · Delray Beach, 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
- 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
- Stall
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vs), not maintained
- 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 private pilot, with one passenger, was conducing a Title 14, CFR Part 91 personal flight in an experimental, homebuilt airplane. As a result of the accident, the pilot sustained serious injuries, and was unable to recall any details about the accident. According to rescue personnel that responded to the accident site, the pilot reported a loss of engine power during cruise flight, and the accident happened as he was attempting a forced landing in an open field. Witnesses reported seeing the accident airplane fly over the open field, followed by a series of descending, spiral turns over the intended landing site. As the airplane continued the series of turns, it abruptly nosed down, and struck the ground nose first. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the wings, fuselage, and empennage. An FAA airworthiness inspector inspected the airplane wreckage after its recovery. The inspector said that the right fuel tank contained about 4 gallons of fuel, and the left fuel tank was empty. He also reported that he did not discover any preaccident mechanical anomalies with the airplane or the engine.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power during cruise flight for an undetermined reason, and the pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed during an emergency descent, which resulted in an inadvertent stall and in-flight collision with terrain. A factor associated with the accident was the inadvertent stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC07LA027
- Event ID
- 20070425X00451
- Case number
- ANC07LA027
- 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: ac2f71ec8510175750764cfe7a9ee20819a25f7246482ac898212b995f523294; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:49:55.412Z.