WPR14LA338 · Nelson RV 3M
Nelson RV 3M · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during initial climb
From North Plains Gliderport (1OR4) to Valley View Airport (5S9)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14LA338
- 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
Nelson RV 3M
- Aircraft type
- Nelson RV-3
- 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
- N43AZ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Plains Gliderport (1OR4), North Plains, ORTo Valley View Airport (5S9), Estacada, OR
- Aircraft age
- About 23 years (built 1991)
- 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 (partial)
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, after a thorough preflight inspection, he taxied the airplane to the run-up area with the right fuel tank selected. He then switched to the left fuel tank for the run-up, and all indications were normal. He then switched back to the right fuel tank and took off for the personal cross-country flight. When the airplane reached about 200 ft above ground level, he made a left turn. Subsequently, the engine power reduced to about 1,000 rpm. The pilot chose to initiate a precautionary landing to a field during which the landing gear folded up beneath and into the bottom of the wings that resulted in substantial damaged to both wings and the fuselage. Subsequently the airplane slid about 100 yards before coming to rest. Although only about 1 inch of fuel was found in the left-wing fuel tank, and no fuel was found in the right-wing fuel tank, there was evidence that fuel had drained out of the airplane; thus, fuel exhaustion was unlikely. Based on the available information, the reason for the partial loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power for undetermined reasons which resulted in a landing gear collapse during the precautionary landing to a field.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14LA338
- Event ID
- 20140810X25023
- Case number
- WPR14LA338
- 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: 47ca42a70a0c2590ad18e5e833acdc5a8ea9cff6a7ff3ad99a74b20f46cb5f4f; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:37:25.311Z.