ERA11LA050 · North American/Schwamm AT-6F
North American/Schwamm AT-6F · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Fitchburg Municipal Airport (FIT) to Fitchburg Municipal Airport (FIT)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11LA050
- 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
- 1 · 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
North American/Schwamm AT-6F
- Aircraft type
- North American/schwamm AT-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
- N164US
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fitchburg Municipal Airport (FIT), Fitchburg, MATo Fitchburg Municipal Airport (FIT), Fitchburg, MA
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was performing a local, revenue sightseeing flight with a passenger in the aft seat. The flight was recorded on a glareshield-mounted personal video recorder. About 12 minutes into the flight, the pilot commented about an unspecified problem; however, the flight continued. Conversation regarding the airplane’s fuel state indicated that there was adequate fuel on board for the flight. After air work and sightseeing, the flight returned to the local traffic pattern. After turning onto final approach for landing, the engine completely lost power. The pilot was unable to restart the engine, and the airplane crashed short of the runway.
Postaccident examination of the carburetor revealed a visible crack in the soldered seam on one of the metal floats. Although there was some impact damage to the carburetor, the cracked float was located inside a fuel chamber that was undamaged. Further examination of the float fracture revealed that it was the result of a dent in the float. The fracture surface was coated with a lead-based corrosion product that was also on the inside of the float, suggesting that the crack had been open and corroding for an extended time period. It is likely that the crack in the float provided a fuel path that allowed the float to fill with fuel, resulting in a carburetor malfunction. Examination of the airplane’s records did not reveal documentation of recent carburetor maintenance.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to a cracked carburetor float and resulting carburetor malfunction.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11LA050
- Event ID
- 20101106X54407
- Case number
- ERA11LA050
- 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: 96e144626c70a2f64ea4a411be38601a62df3fdadbbc20a6a7a0459eea124fd7; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:07:26.522Z.