ERA12LA229 · Flight Design Gmbh CTSW
Manatee Aviation Enterprises Flight Design Gmbh CTSW · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Venice Municipal Airport (VNC) to Punta Gorda Airport (PGD)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12LA229
- 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
Flight Design Gmbh CTSW
- Aircraft type
- Flight Design CTSW
- 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
- N379CT
- Operator
- Manatee Aviation Enterprises
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Venice Municipal Airport (VNC), Venice, FLTo Punta Gorda Airport (PGD), Punta Gorda, FL
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after initiating the takeoff, a low fuel pressure warning activated on the airplane’s engine monitoring system. The engine experienced a total loss of power several seconds later, and the pilot performed a forced landing to the overrun area beyond the departure end of the runway. During the landing roll, the airplane struck the airport perimeter fence and was substantially damaged. The engine and fuel system were examined following the accident, and a successful postaccident test run of the engine and fuel pump did not reveal any reason for the loss of power. The examination did reveal the presence of a sand-like particulate at one fuel system screen and in one of the engine’s two carburetors. Analysis of data from the airplane’s engine monitoring system showed that following the initial loss of fuel pressure, it was briefly restored, before the engine lost power completely and the fuel pressure again fell.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to a loss of fuel pressure. The cause for the loss of fuel pressure could not be determined during postaccident testing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12LA229
- Event ID
- 20120316X50725
- Case number
- ERA12LA229
- 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: c6898c497799b91c8492792b83bc8fc2499129038d3d3cad92ac61c1ac0d333f; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:28:24.841Z.