CEN13LA220 · Walker Phil RV-6A
Walker Phil RV-6A · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Spearfish, ND to Spearfish, ND
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
- CEN13LA220
- 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
Walker Phil RV-6A
- Aircraft type
- Walker Phil RV-6
- 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
- N525PW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Spearfish, NDTo Spearfish, 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 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
- En route
- 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
While climbing through 6,000 feet, the engine suddenly lost power. The pilot stated that, although he subsequently switched on the auxiliary fuel pump and ignition system, the engine did not restart; therefore, he executed a forced landing to a nearby pasture. The nose landing gear collapsed during the landing, and the airplane came to rest inverted. Examination of the automotive engine, which had been adapted for aviation use, found that the coil-distributor wire had loosened and was not connected to the coil. It is likely that the wire came loose during flight, which rendered the automotive ignition system inoperative and caused the engine to lose power.
Probable cause
The coil-distributor wire loosening in flight, which rendered the ignition system inoperative and subsequently caused the loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13LA220
- Event ID
- 20130405X61906
- Case number
- CEN13LA220
- 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: 216fdbe187f1fde44a4ba3a571e69fd7b48245a8f8ba3f93988ac557c1466411; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:14:07.142Z.