ERA13LA167 · Allen BD-5
Allen BD-5 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) while maneuvering
From Statesville Regional Airport (SVH) to Mount Airy Surry County Airport (MWK)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13LA167
- 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
Allen BD-5
- Aircraft type
- Allen BD-5
- 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
- N30BA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Statesville Regional Airport (SVH), Statesville, NCTo Mount Airy Surry County Airport (MWK), Mount Airy, NC
- 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 · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he intended to perform a flyby before landing. As he approached the runway about 50 feet above ground level, the pilot advanced the throttle to full; however, the engine immediately stopped. He responded by pitching the airplane up and to the right. The airplane then entered a steep left turn. The airspeed decreased to 100 mph, and the airplane started to vibrate, so the pilot quickly leveled the wings and pitched downward to prevent the airplane from entering a stall. The pilot continued to fly a wings-level descent until the airplane impacted terrain. Examination of the airplane revealed that the engine choke cable was rigged backwards; therefore, pulling the choke knob out opened the choke valve and pushing it in closed it. The choke knob, which is located directly behind the pilot's head, was found pushed in during postaccident examination. Therefore, it was likely that the pilot's head contacted the choke while he was responding to the loss of engine power, which resulted in a closed choke and a corresponding total loss of engine power. The experimental amateur-built airplane was equipped with an automobile engine and was never certified as airworthy; therefore, it was never issued an airworthiness certificate.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to the pilot's inadvertent closing of the engine choke. Contributing to the accident was the improper rigging of the engine choke cable.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13LA167
- Event ID
- 20130314X15720
- Case number
- ERA13LA167
- 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: b812a4fadc17125359c77e458a16e6c2bb95829c4a40963f4a04c9798729fd29; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:05:40.131Z.