CHI07LA126 · Luscombe 8A
Luscombe 8A · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Flying-A-Ranch Airport (39Z) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI07LA126
- 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
Luscombe 8A
- Aircraft type
- Luscombe 8
- 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
- N1120B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Flying-A-Ranch Airport (39Z), Fruitport, MITo 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
- 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
- Utility pole
- 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(cfi) › Carburetor heat, not used
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the climb out the engine lost power. The CFI lowered the nose to establish a glide speed of about 65-70 mph and executed a forced landing to a field. He applied carburetor heat, switched magnetos, and pumped the throttle but with no effect. The CFI saw power line wires and tried to avoid them by going under the wires, but the airplane's right wing hit a power line pole. The airplane rotated to the right and landed in the ditch next to a road. The engine was put on an engine test stand and the engine run revealed that it met operational specifications. The temperature was 16 degrees Celsius and the dew point was 12 degrees Celsius. The mechanic who conducted the airplane's annual inspection five months earlier and who received dual instruction in the airplane before the accident flight stated that he encountered carburetor icing while taxiing and while in cruise flight. A review of two Luscombe owners' handbooks from the late 1940s and early 1950s found guidance recommending full carburetor heat for takeoffs and landings. A placard located next to the carburetor heat lever on the instrument panel stated the following: "Full Carburetor Air Heat Required for Takeoff and Landing." Although originally intended to correct fuel flow problems in early model 8As (during takeoffs with high pitch attitudes), the placard comports with Luscombe 8A owners and pilot operating manual guidance on carburetor icing avoidance. The certificated flight instructor reported that he had not applied carburetor heat until the engine lost power after takeoff.
Probable cause
The flight instructor failed to use carburetor heat during takeoff in icing conditions. A factor was the power line pole.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI07LA126
- Event ID
- 20070509X00536
- Case number
- CHI07LA126
- 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: 43007eb3fbb2ae3bcba759b5eddfb8c40e51da3e68ebaa778deb28e24cae5957; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:49:30.947Z.