ERA12FA491 · Silvaire LUSCOMBE 8A
Silvaire LUSCOMBE 8A · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin during initial climb
From Albert Whitted Airport (KSPG) to Albert Whitted Airport (KSPG)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12FA491
- 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
- 1 · 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
Silvaire LUSCOMBE 8A
- Aircraft type
- Silvaire LUSCOMBE 8
- 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
- N2761K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albert Whitted Airport (KSPG), St. Petersburg, FLTo Albert Whitted Airport (KSPG), St. Petersburg, 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot/owner and a flight instructor were departing the airport, with the pilot conducting the takeoff. The flight instructor stated that the carburetor heat was off for maximum takeoff power, and stated that the engine seemed to be producing full power until the airplane reached an altitude around 100 feet. The flight instructor noted an audible loss of rpm that was confirmed by the tachometer, and stated that the engine seemed to "roll back." The airplane began to descend, the pilot applied carburetor heat, and the flight instructor assumed control of the airplane. With insufficient runway remaining on which to land, and obstacles at the end of the runway which prohibited a straight-ahead off-airport landing, the flight instructor attempted to maneuver towards the ramp area adjacent to the runway. The airplane subsequently stalled, impacted the runway in a nose-down attitude, and came to rest inverted.
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no evidence of any pre-impact mechanical failures or anomalies. While the takeoff was conducted with carburetor heat off despite a placard in the airplane requiring its use, the airplane's fuel state, as well as atmospheric conditions at the time of the accident, was not conducive to the disruption of fuel flow that the use of carburetor heat was intended to mitigate. The icing probability chart indicates there was potential for carburetor icing at glide and cruise power at the time of the accident. Weight and balance calculations revealed that the airplane was loaded about 68 lbs over its maximum allowable gross weight, and density altitude at the airport about the time of the accident was over 2,000 feet. Despite these factors, which would have adversely affected both the distance required for takeoff and the airplane's rate of climb once airborne, the pilots elected to conduct an intersection takeoff, thus reducing the amount of runway takeoff distance available by nearly 20%, and reducing the diversionary options available in the event of a loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The flight instructor’s and the pilot’s failure to maintain airspeed after a partial loss of engine power after takeoff for reasons that could not be determined during postaccident examination, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and loss of airplane control. Contributing to the accident were the pilots’ decisions to operate the airplane above its maximum allowable gross weight and to perform an intersection takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12FA491
- Event ID
- 20120801X51155
- Case number
- ERA12FA491
- 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: d1013404c8e1bab3073908d8fad900fc9409af2f9700e11a430ebf0c661908c5; retrieved 2026-09-13T22:31:46.959Z.