CHI08CA127 · Cessna 140
Cessna 140 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Burlington Municipal Airport (BUU) to Chicago Executive Airport (PWK)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI08CA127
- 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
Cessna 140
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 140
- 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
- N89307
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Burlington Municipal Airport (BUU), Burlington, WITo Chicago Executive Airport (PWK), Chicago/Prospec, IL
- 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
- 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)
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
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 they departed about 1530 and flew to a second airport. They were conducting takeoffs and full stop landings on runway 01 (2,477 feet by 130 feet, turf) at the that airport at the time of the accident. The pilot stated that on the third takeoff, the engine failed after lift off. The airplane impacted a tree during the forced landing and subsequently came to rest inverted. The pilot informed a Federal Aviation Administration Inspector that the engine began to run rough. He applied carburetor heat and the engine operation smoothed out momentarily, and then quit. The airplane was at an altitude of approximately 250 feet above ground level, in a left turn at the time. A post accident examination of the engine did not reveal any anomalies consistent with a pre impact failure. The airplane had been inverted for several hours after the accident. As a result, the exact amount of fuel on-board at the time of the accident could not be established.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for undetermined reasons. Contributing to the accident was the low altitude at the time of the loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI08CA127
- Event ID
- 20080623X00892
- Case number
- CHI08CA127
- 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: 500a71f00ac77f62a5a1754107b1921677b4768c79f77f7f2251dba1705c3393; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:47:37.555Z.