ANC13LA008 · Bellanca 7ECA
Bellanca 7ECA · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Kenai Municipal Airport (PAEN) to Kenai, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC13LA008
- 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
Bellanca 7ECA
- Aircraft type
- Bellanca 7
- 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
- N31281
- Operator
- Langvardt Brad L
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kenai Municipal Airport (PAEN), Kenai, AKTo Kenai, AK
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the accident flight was a test flight after a recent annual inspection during which two engine cylinders were replaced. After he completed a preflight inspection, which included preheating the airplane, the pilot started the engine and allowed it to run for 45 minutes on the ground. After the ground run was complete, he inspected the engine for oil leaks before departure, and none were found. After takeoff, the pilot said he climbed the airplane to 900 feet above the ground, and as he leveled off, all engine power was lost. In an attempt to restart the engine, he applied carburetor heat and switched fuel tanks, but he was unable to restore engine power, and he selected an area of rough and uneven terrain as a forced landing site. During touchdown, the airplane sustained substantial damage to the empennage and fuselage. A postaccident examination revealed no evidence of preimpact mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. During a subsequent engine run, the engine started and ran normally. According to a Federal Aviation Administration carburetor icing chart, given the temperature and dew point at the time of the accident, carburetor ice was likely at glide and cruise power settings. It is likely that, as the pilot leveled off and reduced engine power, carburetor icing formed, causing the engine to lose power.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to carburetor icing and the pilot's failure to apply carburetor heat when he reduced engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC13LA008
- Event ID
- 20121104X91214
- Case number
- ANC13LA008
- 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: 3ee5b81edcd362e24281857d45e4af9925d15ba9c00e0c72d93e341422111ed8; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:20:16.007Z.