SEA07CA144 · Billings/Humbyrd Thorpe T-18
Billings/Humbyrd Thorpe T-18 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From L66 · Corona, CA to Flabob Airport (RIR)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA07CA144
- 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
Billings/Humbyrd Thorpe T-18
- Aircraft type
- Billings/humbyrd THORPE T-18
- 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
- N45BH
- Operator
- Benjamin H. Savage · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From L66 · Corona, CATo Flabob Airport (RIR), RIVERSIDE/RUBID, CA
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Fuel system › Malfunction
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 reported that the day before the accident, the engine experienced a loss of power "from apparent fuel starvation." On the day of the accident, the pilot reported that before the flight he inspected and modified the fuel system. The pilot stated that he "installed fuel hose directly from tank to carb, bypassing gascolator and fuel flow sensor." The pilot then ran the engine at full power for five minutes before takeoff. The pilot successfully took off on runway 25 and at approximately 500 feet above ground level, the engine lost power. The pilot turned the aircraft back towards the departure runway. While turning to line up with the grass along side the runway, the aircraft "sank out of the turn, collapsed left gear leg and bent left wing - landing in soft grass." The airplane came to a stop in the grass with it's nose on the ground and tail in the air. The pilot exited the airplane and pulled the tail back down. The pilot reported that he believed the malfunction was a "fuel flow fault." Approximately 12 gallons of automotive fuel was on board at the time. Federal Aviation Administration airmen records indicated that the pilot does not hold airframe or powerplant mechanic certificates.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power during the initial climb due to a fuel system malfunction. The pilot's incorrect maintenance modification to the fuel system and continued operation with known deficiencies were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA07CA144
- Event ID
- 20070712X00927
- Case number
- SEA07CA144
- 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: d15d3ecb074d02ca5851d9ca4703492e22c0ac3e4de9c35ee045ee010b36d0ec; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:46:55.692Z.