ERA10LA458 · Bird CK
Bird CK · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during takeoff
From Eagles Mere Field Airport (40PN) to Eagles Mere Field Airport (40PN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10LA458
- 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
Bird CK
- Aircraft type
- Bird CK
- 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
- N765N
- Operator
- Jenkins George Merritt
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Eagles Mere Field Airport (40PN), Eagles Mere, PATo Eagles Mere Field Airport (40PN), Eagles Mere, PA
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The antique biplane had recently undergone a complete restoration, including an overhaul of the engine. The accident flight was one of the first flights since the restoration was completed. After performing a preflight inspection, the pilot departed from the runway and during the takeoff climb, the engine "coughed," several times. The pilot checked the engine instruments and evaluated the engine condition, while remaining in the traffic pattern. After noticing no anomalies with the engine instruments, the pilot decided to fly to another airport, about 4 miles away. He landed uneventfully and taxied back for departure. Upon takeoff, as the airplane was about 3/4 down the runway, and at an altitude of about 150 feet, the engine lost power completely. The pilot was unable to land straight ahead due to trees and terrain, and decided to return to the airport. During the turn, the airplane stalled, and impacted the ground. Examination of the airplane revealed that during the restoration, the inside of the fuel tank was coated with an FAA approved product specifically designed for sealing older fuel tanks. This coating peeled off in large sheets and collected in the sump of the tank, blocking the fuel supply to the carburetor.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to fuel starvation as a result of degradation of the fuel tank coating which blocked the fuel supply.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10LA458
- Event ID
- 20100831X65105
- Case number
- ERA10LA458
- 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: c7ffd1bc73318c43eaaa75d9278b97e96438d151ef2d0336485490844a8a10b5; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:02:48.154Z.