CEN10LA253 · Dearmond Clint RV-6A
Dearmond Clint RV-6A · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Manitowoc County Airport (MTW) to Manitowoc County Airport (MTW)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10LA253
- 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
Dearmond Clint RV-6A
- Aircraft type
- Dearmond Clint RV-6
- 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
- N1257E
- Operator
- Wunsch Donald L
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Manitowoc County Airport (MTW), Manitowoc, WITo Manitowoc County Airport (MTW), Manitowoc, WI
- 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 (total)
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While cruising at 2,900 feet above ground level, the pilot advanced the throttle and heard a "pop" from the engine, which then lost total power before the propeller stopped. The pilot's engine restart was unsuccessful, and he attempted to land at the nearest airport. The airplane landed short of the runway in a muddy field. During the landing, the nose landing gear collapsed and the airplane nosed over, resulting in damage to the vertical stabilizer and rudder. Examination of the airframe and engine revealed that a 7.5 amp ignition fuse, located in the empennage of the airplane, had failed during the flight, which resulted in the loss of ignition and the inability to restart the engine.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to a fuse failure in the ignition system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10LA253
- Event ID
- 20100517X21204
- Case number
- CEN10LA253
- 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: 99f9c731e3ccfbfaf6c92a417f2720026dcfae08020ea861a14bdd4cad6af6ad; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:06:33.442Z.