WPR15LA067 · Farthing James W II BEAVER RX-550
Farthing James W II BEAVER RX-550 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during takeoff
From Perris Valley Airport (L65) to Perris Valley Airport (L65)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15LA067
- 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
Farthing James W II BEAVER RX-550
- Aircraft type
- Farthing James W Ii BEAVER
- 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
- N105JF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Perris Valley Airport (L65), Perris, CATo Perris Valley Airport (L65), Perris, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 8 years (built 2006)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot, who was also the owner/builder of the experimental, amateur-built light sport airplane, was conducting a personal flight. The pilot reported that, earlier on the morning of the accident, he had conducted the first flight since he had performed some maintenance to resolve a longstanding engine surging problem and that, during that flight, the engine operated normally.
During takeoff for the accident flight, the engine initially performed normally, but when the pilot initiated the crosswind turn, the engine started to make a "hollow" sound, accompanied by a partial loss of power. As the pilot attempted to maneuver the airplane away from power lines during the attempted forced off-field landing, he lost airplane control, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and impact with terrain.
Postaccident examination revealed numerous installation and maintenance discrepancies related to the carburetor and fuel supply system, which were not in accordance with the engine manufacturer's installation and maintenance manuals. Any one of these discrepancies could have resulted in the loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The partial loss of engine power during takeoff due to an improperly configured carburetor and fuel supply system. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's loss of airplane control during the off-field landing, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15LA067
- Event ID
- 20141221X71107
- Case number
- WPR15LA067
- 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: 691fcf9848462cfd381fa3944c96962e0d9a220a24837ae837cbd9fb79ffd5ef; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:59:21.477Z.