WPR09LA219 · Ellumax Leasing LLC EPIC LT
Ellumax Leasing LLC EPIC LT · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From Astoria Regional Airport (KAST) to King County International Airport - Boeing Field (KBFI)
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
- WPR09LA219
- 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
Ellumax Leasing LLC EPIC LT
- Aircraft type
- Ellumax Leasing EPIC LT
- 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
- N653SB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Astoria Regional Airport (KAST), Astoria Regiona, ORTo King County International Airport - Boeing Field (KBFI), Boeing Field, 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 · climb to 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a climb to en route cruise, the airplane's engine lost almost all power, and the pilot had to ditch in a river because he was unable to glide back to the departure airport. The power loss was due to a minimum fuel flow command from the fuel control unit as a result of the seizure of the fuel control flyweights. The seizure of the flyweights was due to their contamination with residue from a failed fuel control tachometer drive bearing. The bearing failed due to its preload spacer being machined incorrectly, and due to the failure of the assembling technician to detect the anomaly at the time the fuel control was assembled.
Probable cause
The partial loss of engine power during climb to cruise due to the failure of the engine's fuel control unit. Contributing to the accident was the incorrect machining of an internal component of the fuel control unit, and the failure of the assembling technician to correctly inspect the unit's assembly.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09LA219
- Event ID
- 20090429X35008
- Case number
- WPR09LA219
- 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: 380a4bb24306647ed4986f072314f2676630981abba490ec527285490a819cb1; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:59:49.444Z.