WPR11LA180 · William Wright Avid Flyer
William Wright Avid Flyer · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Cedar City, UT to Cedar City Regional Airport (CDC)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11LA180
- 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
William Wright Avid Flyer
- Aircraft type
- William Wright AVID FLYER
- 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
- N613HH
- Operator
- Color Country Electronics
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cedar City, UTTo Cedar City Regional Airport (CDC), Cedar City, UT
- 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)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was on a local test flight after restoring the airplane and flew for about 1 hour, performing maneuvers and touch-and-go landings. He then returned to the airport and picked up another pilot for a familiarization flight. About 1/2 hour into the second flight, the engine sputtered and lost power. The pilot subsequently made an emergency landing on an airstrip, and after performing some troubleshooting, he determined that fuel was not getting from the header tank to the engine. The pilot was able to eventually get the fuel flowing again and ran the engine for about 30 minutes on the ground, followed by accomplishing a successful run up. The pilot then departed the airstrip. He reported that the engine ran well until about 200 feet above ground level. The engine then lost all power, and the pilot glided the airplane into 15-foot-tall trees. Postaccident examination of the engine revealed modifications to the exhaust, intake, ignition, and fuel systems that were not approved by the manufacturer. At the conclusion of the examination, it could not be determined if there was a specific malfunction or a combination of the multiple modifications that led to the loss of engine power. According to FAA Advisory Circular AC 20-27F, Certification and Operation of Amateur-Built Aircraft, "Amateur builders are free to develop their own designs or build from existing designs.”
Probable cause
A loss of engine power during initial climb for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination did not reveal a specific anomaly that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11LA180
- Event ID
- 20110401X61047
- Case number
- WPR11LA180
- 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: 079a674e123463b4d7ce185350c188c649b8a9fdff451e347504107a0f087ec3; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:59:43.708Z.