ERA15LA133 · Johnson Joel H RANS S-6ES COYOTE II
Johnson Joel H RANS S-6ES COYOTE II · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) while maneuvering
From Eugenio Maria De Hostos Airport (TJMZ) to Eugenio Maria De Hostos Airport (TJMZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15LA133
- 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
- 1 · 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
Johnson Joel H RANS S-6ES COYOTE II
- Aircraft type
- Johnson Joel RANS S-6ES COYOTE
- 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
- N5196W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Eugenio Maria De Hostos Airport (TJMZ), Mayaguez, PRTo Eugenio Maria De Hostos Airport (TJMZ), Mayaguez, PR
- Aircraft age
- About 21 years (built 1994)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 systems
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot had just purchased the experimental, amateur-built airplane on the day of the accident following a short flight with the previous owner. The pilot purchased premium automobile gasoline at a local gas station and refueled the airplane for the flight to his home airport. He and his passenger then boarded the airplane and taxied for takeoff. After takeoff, the pilot climbed the airplane along the shoreline to about 1,000 ft above sea level. About 20 minutes into the flight, the pilot noticed that the engine was not producing enough power to sustain level flight, so he began to troubleshoot while he flew a course parallel to the shoreline over shallow water. Due to people and rocks along the shoreline, he decided not to land on the beach, but to ditch the airplane in the water. Upon touchdown, the airplane decelerated and sank. The pilot released his seatbelt, egressed, and swam to the surface. When the pilot reached the surface, he did not see his passenger. He swam back down to the wreckage, released the passenger's seatbelt, and swam him up to the surface. However, the passenger was not breathing and cardiopulmonary resuscitation was unsuccessful.
Examination of the airplane's fuel system revealed that the single fuel filter located between the electric fuel pump and the primer plunger was full of sand and debris, which obstructed the mesh filter screen. The condition of the filter indicated that it was not being maintained and inspected regularly, even though the fuel filter had a transparent housing and was in a location that allowed it to be inspected easily.
The airplane build manual, engine operator's manual, engine installation manual, and engine maintenance manual all called for frequent inspection of the fuel filter. According to the maintenance manual, the flow through the filter could be restricted due to long-term buildup of dirt, and the fuel filter should be inspected every 25 hours of operation and replaced every 100 hours of operation. Review of the airplane's maintenance records found no entries indicating the inspection or replacement of the fuel filter since 2009, when a new engine was installed. The airplane's most recent condition inspection was performed about 3 months before the accident.
Probable cause
The inadequate maintenance and inspection of the fuel system, which resulted in partial blockage of a fuel filter, a partial loss of engine power, and subsequent ditching.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15LA133
- Event ID
- 20150220X45944
- Case number
- ERA15LA133
- 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: dbcb22ea46528e7eb0fa54f9874a583bf41890296ae94870cd8e4caf5840d48b; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:32:20.784Z.