WPR09CA415 · Paul B. Johnson Avid Mark IV
Paul B. Johnson Avid Mark IV · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure en route
From S67 · Nampa, ID to S67 · Nampa, ID
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09CA415
- 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
Paul B. Johnson Avid Mark IV
- Aircraft type
- Paul B Johnson AVID MARK
- 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
- N333PD
- Operator
- Paul B. Johnson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From S67 · Nampa, IDTo S67 · Nampa, ID
- 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
- Powerplant system/component malfunction/failure
- 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 › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that prior to departing on the test flight he checked all of the rigging, as well as the oil and coolant levels. After performing a takeoff and landing, he stopped and rechecked all fluids. Then he departed to a test area to evaluate slow flight and turn characteristics. The pilot then turned back towards the airport when he observed the coolant temperatures rising, and within a few seconds he could smell coolant. He reduced power, set up an approach to a level field and monitored the temperatures to avoid overheating the engine. The pilot reported that he landed in a bean field, and about 100 feet into the landing roll the bean plants got caught in the landing gear; the airplane subsequently nosed over onto its back. The pilot reported damage to the empennage and fuselage, and that there was no postcrash fire. The pilot further reported that the cause of the engine overheating was the result of a coolant leak from the left intake manifold gasket.
Probable cause
The airplane's encounter with tall vegetation that ensnared the landing gear during an off-field precautionary landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09CA415
- Event ID
- 20090825X61256
- Case number
- WPR09CA415
- 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: f3ab663527c3f15c05cbf0efa98c73978c2e69e5cb9125eb32be0c6b54803424; retrieved 2026-09-15T12:50:34.979Z.