ERA12LA312 · Shoup Ronald R RV-6A
Shoup Ronald R RV-6A · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during initial climb
From J-22 Ranch Airport (16FL) to Roy E. Ray Airport (5R7)
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
- ERA12LA312
- 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
Shoup Ronald R RV-6A
- Aircraft type
- Shoup Ronald RV-6
- 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
- N819RS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From J-22 Ranch Airport (16FL), Milton, FLTo Roy E. Ray Airport (5R7), Bayou La Batre, AL
- 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 (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 Possible conflict
Cause areas
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane began to experience an intermittent loss of engine power during the initial climb, and a witness observed black smoke coming from the engine exhaust. The pilot maneuvered the airplane for a landing to the opposite end of the departure runway; however, he overshot the runway and performed a forced landing to a field. During the forced landing, the nose gear collapsed, and the airplane nosed over, came to rest inverted, and was consumed by a postcrash fire. Postaccident examination of the engine did not reveal any mechanical malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation. The carburetor, gascolator, fuel pump, and fuel lines were destroyed by fire and could not be examined. The airplane had been operated for about 25 hours since its most recent condition inspection, which was performed about 4 months prior. The weather conditions at the time of the accident were conducive to serious carburetor icing at glide power; however, the reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination of the engine did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12LA312
- Event ID
- 20120501X21324
- Case number
- ERA12LA312
- 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: 32b9e72d66ed7e57b1c10270260b51c1dac8218a552fcdbcd6e1bc102cb37408; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:56:11.623Z.