WPR11FA258 · Bowley Murphy Moose
Bowley Murphy Moose · Accident: loss of engine power (total) while maneuvering
From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT) to Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's damage. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11FA258
- 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
Bowley Murphy Moose
- Aircraft type
- Bowley MURPHY
- 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
- N189SB
- Operator
- Steven J. Bowley · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT), Phoenix, AZTo Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT), Phoenix, AZ
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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 Possible conflict
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The builder/owner/pilot of the experimental amateur-built airplane, which was powered by a converted automobile engine, was conducting a personal flight to practice maneuvers and landings. While maneuvering about 1,400 feet above the ground, the pilot smelled fuel and noticed fuel pressure and engine rpm abnormalities. He decided to conduct a precautionary landing on a highway, but, while setting up for the landing, the engine experienced a complete power loss. The pilot landed the airplane uneventfully on the flat desert terrain. After he secured and exited the airplane, a fire developed in the engine compartment and consumed most of the airplane. Examination of the wreckage revealed that the builder/pilot had made extensive use of non-aviation hardware for many engine fluid fittings and lines. Fire damage precluded determination of the origin of the fuel leak and subsequent fire. Federal Aviation Administration records indicated that about 5 years before this event, a fuel leak and fire in the engine compartment of the same airplane occurred while taxiing.
Probable cause
A fire that originated from a fuel leak at an undetermined location in the engine compartment. Contributing to the accident was the builder's use of non-aviation hardware for engine fluid fittings and lines.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11FA258
- Event ID
- 20110612X25844
- Case number
- WPR11FA258
- 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: 12d99a1226a76dbf2c2f26993a9d3c02929e68a8ea3a0bd4c2999edea1484a23; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:16:26.054Z.