CEN13LA490 · Taylorcraft BC12-D1
Taylorcraft BC12-D1 · Accident: fire/smoke (non-impact) en route
From Cherry Capital Airport (TVC) to Torchport Airport (59M)
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
- CEN13LA490
- 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
Taylorcraft BC12-D1
- Aircraft type
- Taylorcraft BC12
- 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
- N44351
- Operator
- George Grissom
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Cherry Capital Airport (TVC), Travese City, MITo Torchport Airport (59M), Eastport, MI
- 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 · cruise
- 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
- Fire/smoke (non-impact)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he noticed the smell of gasoline while in cruise flight about 5 to 8 miles from his intended destination. He stated that when the airplane was on the downwind leg of the traffic pattern, the smell of the gasoline became much stronger. During the landing flare, the engine stopped producing power, and the pilot smelled a very strong odor that he described as a burnt metal smell. After landing, the pilot departed the airplane quickly. About 45 seconds later, flames started coming out of the left side of the engine cowl. The fire spread, and within about 15 minutes, it had consumed most of the airplane. The examination of the wreckage revealed that the most extensive fire damage was located on the left rear side of the engine; however, the source of the fuel leak and fire could not be determined because of the fire damage.
Probable cause
A fuel leak in the engine compartment and subsequent fire, the source of which could not be determined because of extensive postaccident fire damage.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13LA490
- Event ID
- 20130815X82832
- Case number
- CEN13LA490
- 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, coordinates. 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: b5347e5a2e5d034817005a1ce2c099c95bf75cf0c2c096d6d1248ae88119a33e; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:32:58.127Z.