LAX08CA295 · Miltenberger Family Fun
Miltenberger Family Fun · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From Albany Municipal Airport (S12) to Carson Airport (CXP)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX08CA295
- 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
Miltenberger Family Fun
- Aircraft type
- Miltenberger FAMILY FUN
- 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
- N903PD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albany Municipal Airport (S12), Albany, ORTo Carson Airport (CXP), Carson City, NV
- 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 (partial)
- 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 power plant
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a cross-country flight at an altitude of 9,500 msl, the pilot detected an odor which smelled like a hot engine. The pilot reduced engine power, and the odor went away. The engine then started running rough. At no time did the pilot apply carburetor heat. The pilot executed an emergency landing in a field, where the airplane impacted a wire fence. The airplane sustained damage to the right landing gear and its attach point. The pilot stated that the Ford 3.8 V-6 engine was susceptible to carburetor ice due to the carburetor installation. The closest weather reporting station noted the temperature was 68 degrees and the dew point was 34 degrees. The intersection of these two temperatures on a carburetor icing probability chart is right at the boundary between the two sections annotated "light icing cruise power" and "serious icing glide power." The pilot said there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to carburetor icing and the pilot's failure to use carburetor heat.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX08CA295
- Event ID
- 20081003X17548
- Case number
- LAX08CA295
- 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. 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: f47d7b9fee5890e20224ef61f5f1038198699a304ca6531d30c4059031eaee31; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:17:57.729Z.