WPR14LA153 · Zenair CH2T
KS Aviation Zenair CH2T · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) on approach
From Castle Airport (MER) to Yolo County Davis Woodland Winters Airport (DWA)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14LA153
- 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
Zenair CH2T
- Aircraft type
- Zenair CH2
- 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
- N285AM
- Operator
- KS Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Castle Airport (MER), Merced, CATo Yolo County Davis Woodland Winters Airport (DWA), Woodland, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 10 years (built 2004)
- 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 · IFR initial approach
- 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 (partial)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor reported that the airplane entered clouds as it was descending during the training instrument approach. The flight instructor suggested that the student pilot increase the descent rate to pass through the clouds more quickly. After about 1 to 2 minutes in the clouds, the student reduced the engine power and pitched the airplane slightly down to increase the descent rate. Immediately thereafter, the engine speed dropped to between 800 and 1,000 rpm, and the propeller sounded as if it were windmilling. The flight instructor took control of the airplane and completed a mental emergency checklist with the student confirming the steps, which included applying carburetor heat; however, the instructor's attempts to restore engine power were unsuccessful. The airplane exited the cloud layer between 1,500 and 2,500 ft. The flight instructor declared a Mayday with approach control as he and the student completed the emergency checklist again with no results. The flight instructor initiated an off-airport landing, and, during the landing roll, the airplane collided with trees.
A postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The weather conditions encountered at the time of the accident were conducive to the formation of serious carburetor icing at cruise power. It is likely that carburetor ice formed during the descent and that the extended low-power setting prevented the engine temperature from getting high enough to melt the ice.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during approach due to carburetor icing, which resulted in an off-airport landing into trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14LA153
- Event ID
- 20140401X71416
- Case number
- WPR14LA153
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2014-03-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4404117e3feb740fe40e3aaa396f8e24a8331542744cc8e85eab43c38db42785; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:28:11.309Z.