ANC14LA071 · de Havilland DHC 2
de Havilland DHC 2 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Lake Hood Seaplane Base (LHD) to Anchorage, AK
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC14LA071
- 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
de Havilland DHC 2
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland DHC-2
- 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
- N93E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lake Hood Seaplane Base (LHD), Anchorage, AKTo Anchorage, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 58 years (built 1956)
- 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 power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, just after takeoff while the airplane was about 100 ft above ground level, the engine lost all power. He attempted to restart the engine but was unsuccessful. He subsequently made a forced landing in an area of densely populated trees. During postaccident bench testing, the engine-driven fuel pump produced widely inconsistent fuel flow rates. Disassembly of the pump revealed that the oil seal on the spline driver shaft was split and that it was protruding through the opening in the thrust washer. The engine oil seal was not found inside the pump. It could not be determined whether the seal had ever been installed or if the seal had deteriorated inside the housing. The seal housing and pump bearings were dirty, and numerous pieces of foreign matter were noted within the seal and pump housing. Based on the evidence, it is likely that the fuel pump malfunctioned and caused a disruption of adequate fuel to the carburetor, which resulted in a loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power during takeoff due to a malfunction of the engine-driven fuel pump.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC14LA071
- Event ID
- 20140902X30554
- Case number
- ANC14LA071
- 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 2014-09-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 106c291555aa523e4d37d4c902003ddd072db46a4bf31d61bf36c244c19cacc9; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:42:27.160Z.