CEN12LA306 · Taylorcraft BC12-D
Taylorcraft BC12-D · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) while maneuvering
From General Dewitt Spain Airport (M01) to General Dewitt Spain Airport (M01)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12LA306
- 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
Taylorcraft BC12-D
- Aircraft type
- Taylorcraft BC12
- 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
- N43635
- Operator
- Steven Jones
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From General Dewitt Spain Airport (M01), Memphis, TNTo General Dewitt Spain Airport (M01), Memphis, TN
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The engine lost power about 10 minutes into the flight. The flight instructor assumed control of the airplane and configured it for a forced landing in a soybean field. The engine power resumed then was lost again. The instructor attempted to make a steep turn back toward the soybean field. He did not realize how low the airplane was, and the airplane collided with the ground. Both the instructor and student said they had not used carburetor heat. According to the local weather report, the temperature and dew point were 79 degrees and 55 degrees Fahrenheit, respectively. According to the “Carburetor Icing Probability Chart,” this temperature/dew point combination would be in the “serious icing (glide power)” range. An examination of the airplane did not reveal any anomalies with the engine. Although there is a possibility carburetor icing occurred, it could not be determined if the airplane had been operated in conditions that resulted in the formation of carburetor icing.
Probable cause
The partial loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined because 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 CEN12LA306
- Event ID
- 20120519X10915
- Case number
- CEN12LA306
- 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, coordinates. 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: e91c799e0a8e17a73bebb183dd71a8ce556bbd1b7bf77c99836f84169002209c; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:10:40.285Z.