ERA12LA045 · Graff Wilbur C BEARHAWK
Graff Wilbur C BEARHAWK · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) while maneuvering
From Upperglade, WV to Upperglade, WV
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12LA045
- 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
Graff Wilbur C BEARHAWK
- Aircraft type
- Graff Wilbur BEARHAWK
- 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
- N5456C
- Operator
- Mccourt Dwayne e
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Upperglade, WVTo Upperglade, WV
- 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
- 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 (partial)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he was flying in a slow-flight configuration for more than 20 minutes when the engine began to lose power. Although the pilot applied carburetor heat, the engine continued to lose power. The pilot made a forced landing on a highway and collided with a road sign and a ditch. A postaccident engine run was conducted, and no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation were noted. According to the Federal Aviation Administration carburetor icing chart, the weather conditions in the area at the time of the accident were favorable for the accumulation of serious carburetor icing. It is likely that the continued slow flight in those conditions resulted in the loss of engine power due to carburetor icing, and the pilot’s application of carburetor heat was too late.
Probable cause
The pilot’s delayed use of carburetor heat while operating in conditions conducive to carburetor icing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12LA045
- Event ID
- 20111024X40105
- Case number
- ERA12LA045
- 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: c1433b5df19257b136bda7bec537de0ded0652f7c8d81adc269ac64bb3a965de; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:52:39.015Z.