WPR11LA289 · Lemond FLY FISHER
Doug Sapp Lemond FLY FISHER · Accident: fuel contamination during initial climb
From Ryan Field (2MT1) to Omak, WA
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11LA289
- 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
Lemond FLY FISHER
- Aircraft type
- Lemond FLY FISHER
- 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
- N397JL
- Operator
- Doug Sapp
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ryan Field (2MT1), West Glacier, MTTo Omak, WA
- 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
- Fuel contamination
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, during his preflight inspection, he drained fuel from all three fuel drains with no evidence of water noted. During the takeoff roll, the airplane was about halfway down the runway when he heard a small pop and looked at the engine rpm gauge. The pilot stated that he saw no indication of a loss of engine power and decided to continue the takeoff. As the airplane was over the departure end of the runway, the engine lost all power, and the pilot performed a forced landing to an adjacent field. During the landing, the airplane struck trees and came to rest on its right side. The pilot added that when the engine lost power, it was "like it [the engine] had a slug of water." Examination of the recovered engine revealed no mechanical anomalies that would have prevented normal operation. Examination of the airframe fuel filter revealed that a small amount of clear liquid was within the filter bowl. The liquid was tested and found to be water. It is likely that the unusual attitude in which the airplane was parked during the pilot's preflight inspection may have allowed water to be trapped within different areas of the fuel tank that would have prevented the water from gathering at the lowest point within the fuel tank.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during takeoff due to water contamination in the fuel system. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s inadequate preflight inspection of the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11LA289
- Event ID
- 20110627X44209
- Case number
- WPR11LA289
- 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: 70cb43f5c17b5d5f117ff56596c1ef83f25e75b2899d6fd02823b7085de8139f; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:21:28.819Z.