CEN14LA079 · Thompson William A SPARROW II
Thompson William A SPARROW II · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Jeromesville, OH (private airstrip) to Jeromesville, OH (private airstrip)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA079
- 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
Thompson William A SPARROW II
- Aircraft type
- Thompson William SPARROW
- 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
- N5955Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jeromesville, OH (private airstrip)To Jeromesville, OH (private airstrip)
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 1998)
- 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 › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot recalled taxi testing the airplane, which had a newly installed carburetor, before flying the airplane around his farm without incident. He believed that he took off again and that the engine lost power, but he was unsure at what point during the flight that might have occurred. He recalled that he might have been attempting to return to the runway at the time of the accident; however, he did not recall the accident. A postaccident examination of the airplane on scene did not reveal any anomalies attributable to a preimpact failure or malfunction. Although the airplane was operating in weather conditions with a chance of moderate carburetor icing at cruise power, the investigation could not determine whether the loss of power was caused by mechanical or environmental factors. The pilot received his student pilot certificate the year before the accident; however, he could not provide any record of an endorsement for solo flight, as required. Further, although he reported maintaining the airplane himself, there was no record of him holding a mechanic or repairman certificate.
Probable cause
The student pilot's in-flight loss of control while attempting to return to the runway following a loss of engine power. The cause of the loss of engine power could not be determined because the postaccident examination did not reveal any anomalies.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA079
- Event ID
- 20131209X21933
- Case number
- CEN14LA079
- 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: c20da0a4bf5fa02bb7aca947cbb8d1114660a86d8e6064684338b0463ca24fae; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:10:09.573Z.