CEN12LA458 · Grumman G-164A
Grumman G-164A · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) while maneuvering
From Cando Municipal Airport (9D7) to Cando Municipal Airport (9D7)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12LA458
- 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
Grumman G-164A
- Aircraft type
- Grumman G-164
- 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
- N6583
- Operator
- Nathan Murdoch
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Cando Municipal Airport (9D7), Cando Municipal, NDTo Cando Municipal Airport (9D7), Cando Municipal, ND
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he made two aerial application passes over the wheat field. During the reversal turn on the second pass, the airplane cleared a set of power lines and began to settle. The pilot applied full throttle, but the engine did not respond. He flared the airplane and completed a forced landing to the wheat field. During the landing, the landing gear failed, which resulted in substantial damage to the right wing. The examination of the two propeller blades revealed that they both exhibited leading edge gouges, chordwise scratches, and blade twisting, which is consistent with the engine operating at the time of ground impact. The atmospheric conditions at the time of the accident were conducive to the accumulation of carburetor ice while operating at a sustained idle engine power setting. However, the engine power setting used during the aerial application flight would have been significantly higher than an idle engine setting; therefore, it is unlikely that carburetor ice accumulated during the accident flight.
Probable cause
The partial loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined during postaccident examinations.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12LA458
- Event ID
- 20120719X02902
- Case number
- CEN12LA458
- 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: 2779358114e80a13d5798520044863655e9dd5df4b024bedba9e17db360fd53c; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:58:28.859Z.