ERA09LA448 · Kociemba Robert H T-Bird II
Kociemba Robert H T-Bird II · Accident: fuel contamination during initial climb
From Keymar Airpark (MD42) to Keymar Airpark (MD42)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09LA448
- 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
Kociemba Robert H T-Bird II
- Aircraft type
- Kociemba Robert T-BIRD
- 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
- N90458
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Keymar Airpark (MD42), Keymar, MDTo Keymar Airpark (MD42), Keymar, MD
- 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
- Fuel contamination
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Several witnesses observed the experimental, amateur-built airplane in a spin before they lost sight of it when it descended behind a row of trees. Another witness, who heard the engine but did not see the airplane in flight, stated that it sounded like it was "overloaded and struggling." Examination of the airframe revealed severe corrosion on the airframe structural tubing; however, there was no evidence of preimpact mechanical failure. Examination of the two-cylinder engine revealed that the aft cylinder, and the carburetor bowl that supplied fuel to that cylinder, were devoid of fuel, indicative of fuel starvation. Water and particulate contamination was found throughout the fuel system. Fuel sample analysis revealed that the fuel was 92 octane and contained about 9 percent ethanol. The contamination levels were sufficient to result in fuel starvation to one cylinder, and resulted in a complete loss of engine power. The complete loss of power in the rear-mounted engine at low altitude resulted in a pitch-up of the airplane, a reduction of airspeed, and an aerodynamic stall and spin from which the pilot could not recover. About 4 months prior to the accident the engine manufacturer issued guidance allowing for up to 10 percent ethanol blended fuels to be used; however, the owners were urged to confirm with the airframe manufacturer that ethanol blended fuels are allowed. No written guidance by the airframe manufacturer was located concerning the use of ethanol and no entry was located in the airplane maintenance record indicating that any change had been made to the airplane. Postmortem toxicology testing on the pilot was consistent with the use of a short-acting sleep aid the night prior to the accident and recent use of an over-the-counter antihistamine with impairing effects, likely for treatment of seasonal allergy symptoms. The sleep aid was unlikely to have resulted in impairment on the day of the accident, but the antihistamine could have adversely affected the pilot’s actions in response to the loss of power. The pilot did not possess a current airman medical certificate.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed following a total loss of engine power due to fuel contamination.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09LA448
- Event ID
- 20090808X55842
- Case number
- ERA09LA448
- 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: 3436eeb588c90681be1c76f8c5b8344bd973d4cacd5d227f08b927635bb0de21; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:23:55.372Z.