WPR15LA156 · Buhl LA 1
Buhl LA 1 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) on approach
From Cottage Grove State Airport (61S) to Cottage Grove State Airport (61S)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15LA156
- 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
Buhl LA 1
- Aircraft type
- Buhl LA-1
- 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
- N352Y
- Operator
- Evers Melvin D
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cottage Grove State Airport (61S), Cottage Grove, ORTo Cottage Grove State Airport (61S), Cottage Grove, OR
- Aircraft age
- About 84 years (built 1931)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was conducting a high-speed taxi test, during which he did not intend to fly, when the airplane encountered a wind gust and then unexpectedly became airborne. Insufficient runway was available to abort the takeoff, so he decided to continue flight in the traffic pattern and return to land. On the downwind leg, the engine lost power. The pilot continued straight ahead toward an open area, and the right wing impacted a tree during the forced landing.
A postaccident examination of the engine revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The weather conditions at the time of the accident were conducive to the formation of carburetor icing at glide and cruise power and serious icing at glide power. The airplane was not equipped with carburetor heat, and it is likely that the loss of engine power was due to carburetor icing.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power on downwind for landing due to carburetor icing, which resulted in a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15LA156
- Event ID
- 20150503X95142
- Case number
- WPR15LA156
- 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, coordinates. 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: 72060fe0801217df441fd08d19852c105e4b3c6a26ac61966128c5c018bd8b31; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:16:37.456Z.