FLIGHT FINDINGSAVIATION OCCURRENCE MAP
Back to map

CEN15LA179 · Picard ROY J RV 4

23 Mar 2015 · Marathon, TX, United States

Picard ROY J RV 4 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb

From 6TE2 · Marathon, TX to Tyler Pounds Regional Airport (KTYR)

Report a problem

Event

NTSB case
CEN15LA179
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

Picard ROY J RV 4

Aircraft type
Picard Roy RV-4
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
N945RV
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From 6TE2 · Marathon, TXTo Tyler Pounds Regional Airport (KTYR), Tyler, TX
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
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

  • Not determined › Not determined

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilot reported that, during takeoff climb, the engine sputtered, followed by a total loss of power. The pilot executed a forced landing into a field, and the airplane impacted a fence and nosed over. A postaccident examination of the fuel system, engine, and cockpit controls revealed no evidence of any mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.

Probable cause

A total loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no evidence of any mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record CEN15LA179
Event ID
20150324X90606
Case number
CEN15LA179
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: 3e6229c5b02a495292db06cd5ed2d4111ee205f261b46bf534335d35810d2391; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:10:44.449Z.