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LAX08LA059 · Munson RV-6A

16 Feb 2008 · Stanwood, WA, United States

Munson RV-6A · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route

From Arlington Municipal Airport (KAWO) to Camano Is, WA

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Event

NTSB case
LAX08LA059
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
2 · 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

Munson RV-6A

Aircraft type
Munson RV-6
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
N154RM
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Arlington Municipal Airport (KAWO), Arlington, WATo Camano Is, WA
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
Defining eventThe 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 (total)
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

  • Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability

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 was in radio communications with her husband, who was on the ground. She stated that she had "lost power" and was landing in a field. No additional information was relayed by the pilot. A witness reported to the sheriff that he heard a sound of an airplane approaching, saw it descending in altitude, and then heard it impact the ground. The wreckage was located in an open field, with the nose of the airplane imbedded into the ground, and the tail elevated at an angle of 45 degrees above the horizon. No other ground scars were evident leading to the airplane wreckage. The wreckage configuration was consistent with the end result of an aerodynamic stall followed by an uncontrolled descent at low altitude. No evidence of any preimpact mechanical anomalies were identified during the postaccident examination of the engine and airplane.

Probable cause

The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed above stall (Vs) during an emergency landing that lead to a stall and uncontrolled descent. Contributing to the accident was the loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record LAX08LA059
Event ID
20080221X00222
Case number
LAX08LA059
Dataset
full-current
Source SHA-256
5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: f9e0ab20eaafaaac506d7adc8e7030815602e15f6c0d95e469dfc855f157a8d7; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:56:48.656Z.