SEA07CA221 · Britten-Norman BN-2A-20
Mountain Bird Britten-Norman BN-2A-20 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Stanley Airport (2U7) to Lemhi County Airport (SMN)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA07CA221
- 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
Britten-Norman BN-2A-20
- Aircraft type
- Britten Norman BN-2
- 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
- N6561B
- Operator
- Mountain Bird
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Stanley Airport (2U7), Stanley, IDTo Lemhi County Airport (SMN), Salmon, ID
- 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
- Fuel exhaustion
- 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 › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Refueling, not verified
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, before the flight, prior to the accident flight, he placed a fuel order, but did not verify that the twin-engine airplane was refueled before departing with 8 passengers for a cross country flight. This flight reached its destination without incident, the passengers exited the airplane, and the pilot then departed as the sole occupant of the airplane on a repositioning flight. Shortly after takeoff, at an altitude of about 400 feet agl, the left engine "started to sputter." The pilot executed the engine failure checklist and upon retarding the left throttle, the airplane yawed to the left "giving [the pilot] the impression it was still producing power." He decided not to shut down the engine and began a right turn to return to the departure airport. During the turn, the right engine "started to sputter," and he noticed the "fuel tank indicators were both on empty." The pilot decided "to leave all controls forward and gave no further thought to shutting down or feathering either engine." Shortly thereafter, he realized he would not make the runway and elected to land in an open field. During the landing roll, the airplane encountered a ditch, resulting in collapse of the left main landing gear.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to verify that the airplane was refueled, which resulted in a loss of engine power from both engines due to fuel exhaustion and a forced landing. A contributing factor was the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA07CA221
- Event ID
- 20070831X01277
- Case number
- SEA07CA221
- 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: 74883408bad65805c68504acfad240a77342f029916586ab1f5496d4063702d3; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:39:19.356Z.