CEN13LA561 · Weatherly 620
Weatherly 620 · Accident: fire/smoke (non-impact) en route
From Ulysses Airport (ULS) to Eads Municipal Airport (9V7)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13LA561
- 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
Weatherly 620
- Aircraft type
- Weatherly 620
- 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
- N4623M
- Operator
- Linnebur Gene L
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ulysses Airport (ULS), Ulysses, KSTo Eads Municipal Airport (9V7), Eads, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 27 years (built 1986)
- 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
- 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, about 10 minutes after takeoff while in cruise flight at 200 feet above ground level, he smelled smoke in the cockpit. Within 10 seconds, dark smoke filled the cockpit. He turned the master switch to the "off" position, and the engine subsequently stopped producing power. He turned on the master switch and the fuel boost pump to restart the engine, but the engine did not restart. He executed a forced landing to a cornfield, and fire consumed most of the airplane. The examination of the wreckage revealed that the radial engine and the components located forward of the firewall exhibited minimal fire damage. The area that exhibited the most extensive fire damage was located between the chemical hopper and aft of the engine firewall; this area included the fuel boost pump, fuel strainer, and fuel lines. The source of the fire and the reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined due to the extensive fire damage to the airplane's fuel and electrical systems.
Probable cause
An in-flight fire and subsequent loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined due to extensive fire damage to the airplane and its fuel and electrical systems.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13LA561
- Event ID
- 20130926X05905
- Case number
- CEN13LA561
- 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: e887d3c15fa1ac625f3e9c6d2547c972d18bbc83e65a5a6c44050962a2054bcf; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:54:44.353Z.