CEN11FA141 · Columbia Aircraft MFG LC41-550FG
Paradise Leasing Columbia Aircraft MFG LC41-550FG · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Air Evac 139 Heliport (2TS6) to South Arkansas Regional Airport at Goodwin Field (ELD)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN11FA141
- 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
Columbia Aircraft MFG LC41-550FG
- Aircraft type
- Columbia LC41
- 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
- N1393T
- Operator
- Paradise Leasing
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Air Evac 139 Heliport (2TS6), Midlothian, TXTo South Arkansas Regional Airport at Goodwin Field (ELD), El Dorado, AR
- 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
- 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
Shortly after takeoff, a witness heard the airplane's engine stall and saw dark smoke emanate from the airplane. The witness observed the airplane turn left and heard sounds similar to the engine attempting to restart as the airplane descended and collided with the ground. Signatures at the accident scene were consistent with an aerodynamic stall prior to impact. The electric fuel boost pump had been impact-damaged and performance at the low flow setting could not be tested. The pump operated within limits at its high flow setting. An examination of the engine revealed dark, black sooting on the spark plugs, indicating a rich fuel setting. In addition, a clamp securing the rubber hose between the left intercooler and aft intercooler induction tubes was found set to a smaller diameter than the combined diameter of the induction tube and rubber hose, which would have reduced the turbocharger's efficiency. No further anomalies were found with the airframe or engine. An autopsy of the pilot noted that "[m]yocarditis may or may not have caused a cardiac event, i.e. arrhythmia, prior to the plane crash." The investigation was unable to determine definitively whether pilot incapacitation occurred; however, the engine failure would not be attributed to the pilot’s performance.
Probable cause
The engine's loss of power during takeoff for reasons that could not be determined because no engine anomalies were discovered during the postaccident examination.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11FA141
- Event ID
- 20110105X25845
- Case number
- CEN11FA141
- 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: 009aee7ddbe2354a9c5820461e62a99ae90dc88457f496831b2fa4c2a23e1dc8; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:12:19.520Z.