DEN08LA015 · Ryan Navion
Ryan Navion · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Santa Fe Municipal Airport (KSAF) to Moriarty Municipal Airport (0E0)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN08LA015
- 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 Navion
- Aircraft type
- Ryan NAVION
- 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
- N5104K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Fe Municipal Airport (KSAF), Santa Fe, NMTo Moriarty Municipal Airport (0E0), Moriarty, NM
- 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 starvation
- 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 › Starvation
- Fuel system, gascolator › Leak
- Fuel system, selector/valve › Leak
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, the engine start, taxi, and engine run-up prior to takeoff were normal, without issues, or anomalies. The airplane departed from runway 28. After raising the landing gear, the pilot noted that the engine rpms were dropping through 2,100 rpm. The pilot communicated with the air traffic control tower, performed a 90 degree turn to the left to avoid terrain and obstacles, and performed a forced landing to rough, uneven terrain. During the landing the nosegear assembly and the right main landing gear separated. The airplane rotated 90 degrees to the right, slid, and came to rest on the right wing, resulting in substantial damage. An examination of the engine revealed no anomalies. The fuel selector valve was removed for further examination and testing. The valve exhibited fuel staining on the main tank inlet and fuel line fitting. The gascolator exhibited fuel staining on the top left side of the casting and on the bottom at the fuel sump location. During the vacuum test the valve bled down more than 10 inches in one minute. The gascolater was compromised and leaked severely. Leaks in the fuel selector valve and gascolator can allow air into the fuel system and result in the loss of engine power.
Probable cause
A leak in the fuel selector valve and gascolator that resulted in fuel starvation during takeoff. Contributing to the accident was a lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN08LA015
- Event ID
- 20071030X01688
- Case number
- DEN08LA015
- 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: 95600c0bfa7c4b4d2f2a153d8774943aa8f30bb789c8b63cb17e3185098aa593; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:22:11.673Z.