WPR13LA251 · American AA-1
American AA-1 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Truckee Tahoe Airport (TRK) to Derby Field (LOL)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13LA251
- 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
American AA-1
- Aircraft type
- American AA-1
- 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
- N5909L
- Operator
- Silva Lawrence JR
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Truckee Tahoe Airport (TRK), Truckee, CATo Derby Field (LOL), Lovelock, NV
- 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
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot was conducting a ferry flight for the airplane's owner. The pilot reported that, before takeoff, he leaned the fuel mixture for taxi but that, on takeoff, the mixture was full rich. During the initial climb, the engine lost power; the pilot stated that he did not remember anything after the loss of power occurred. The airplane subsequently collided with trees about 8 miles east of the airport, which is at an elevation of 5,901 ft and surrounded by mountainous terrain. Postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
According to the airplane owner's manual, during takeoff or climb from high-altitude airports, the engine should be leaned to achieve maximum rpm; the calculated density altitude at the time of the accident was about 6,552 ft. The manual further stated that, at full throttle climb at altitudes above 5,000 ft, the fuel mixture should be leaned for smooth engine operation. The manual noted that a rough-running engine can result from an improper fuel/air mixture.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to lean the fuel mixture during takeoff in high-density altitude conditions, which resulted in a loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13LA251
- Event ID
- 20130530X00448
- Case number
- WPR13LA251
- 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: c4724158681e5f36aa082b651f7ac96f50f5abe47d2086a43cee059366f09619; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:42:52.090Z.