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CEN13CA315 · Cub Crafters CCK

3 Jun 2013 · Cookson, OK, United States

Cub Crafters CCK · Accident: fuel contamination on approach

From Tenkiller Lake Airpark (44M) to Tenkiller Lake Airpark (44M)

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Event

NTSB case
CEN13CA315
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

Cub Crafters CCK

Aircraft type
Cub Crafters CCK
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
N319MA
Operator
Dennis R. Stephen · private individual
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Tenkiller Lake Airpark (44M), Cookson, OKTo Tenkiller Lake Airpark (44M), Cookson, OK
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
Approach · VFR pattern final
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
Fuel contamination
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

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The engine lost power during the approach for landing and the restart attempt was unsuccessful. The pilot attempted to make a forced landing on a narrow gravel road. The left wing struck the top of a tree; the airplane spun around and impacted the ground. The wings received substantial damage. Post-accident examination revealed water in the fuel, in the carburetor, and in the storage supply tank. The pilot surmised that the water was likely due to recent heavy rain showers. He admitted he failed to check the fuel when he preflighted the airplane, and overlooked checking the fuel storage tank’s fuel filter/water separator.

Probable cause

A total loss of engine power due to water contamination in the fuel. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's failure to check the fuel during the preflight, and failure to check the fuel storage tank’s fuel filter/water separator.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record CEN13CA315
Event ID
20130604X25605
Case number
CEN13CA315
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: e4885d89d008b6fb565e9f5d56f1e92edb13271406da800826e41d34d03ae071; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:46:30.819Z.