ERA15LA189 · Cessna LC41-550FG
Icarus Air Cessna LC41-550FG · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV) to Okeechobee County Airport (OBE)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's damage. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15LA189
- 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
Cessna LC41-550FG
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 41
- 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
- N400BZ
- Operator
- Icarus Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV), Savannah, GATo Okeechobee County Airport (OBE), Okeechobee, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 7 years (built 2008)
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 Possible conflict
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a preflight inspection, the private pilot verified that the engine contained about 7 quarts of oil; he subsequently departed on a cross-country flight. About 1 hour into the flight, the pilot observed the oil pressure decline. The propeller stopped turning, and smoke entered the cabin. The pilot declared an emergency and subsequently completed a forced landing at a nearby airport. As the airplane came to rest, the pilot observed flames coming from the engine cowling. After the passengers egressed, most of the airplane was consumed by fire.
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed thermal damage to the engine compartment and fuselage. One exhaust valve rocker box cover was missing, another rocker box cover was missing multiple screws, and a third rocker box cover was loose. Multiple oil journals were dry and displayed heat discoloration. The separation of the rocker box cover resulted in the engine depleting its oil supply during the flight and a subsequent catastrophic engine failure due to oil starvation.
A review of the airplane's maintenance history indicated that the rocker box covers would have been removed about 4 years before the accident when the engine was disassembled following a propeller strike. However, based on maintenance log entries, it could not be determined whether the rocker box covers had been removed or inspected since that time.
Probable cause
An inflight fire and a total loss of engine power due to oil starvation, after separation of the No. 3 cylinder exhaust valve rocker box cover for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15LA189
- Event ID
- 20150420X82410
- Case number
- ERA15LA189
- 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: fbef3f5c3e507390547e0223f283b23ec27fdb10c993b8923300de7106fcbed0; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:14:39.869Z.