CEN15LA258 · Flight Design Gmbh CTSW
Flight Design Gmbh CTSW · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during initial climb
From Haskell Airport (2K9) to Hefner Easley Airport (H68)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15LA258
- 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
Flight Design Gmbh CTSW
- Aircraft type
- Flight Design CTSW
- 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
- N535CT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Haskell Airport (2K9), Haskell, OKTo Hefner Easley Airport (H68), Wagoner, OK
- Aircraft age
- About 8 years (built 2007)
- 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 (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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The sport pilot completed a preflight inspection of the airplane and noted that it had about 28 gallons of automotive fuel; he conducted a cross-country flight with no anomalies noted. After starting the engine before takeoff for the return flight, the pilot noticed that the engine gauges were normal but that the charging system had an inadequate output, so he shut down the engine. After consulting a mechanic, he restarted the engine and noted normal engine and charging indications. During the takeoff climb, about 500 to 600 ft above ground level, the engine starting "sputtering" and continued to run but the airplane did not maintain altitude. The choke was off, and the pilot applied various throttle settings to no avail. The pilot performed a forced landing to a field, and the airplane came to rest inverted.
Postaccident examination of the airplane's fuel system was satisfactory and did not reveal any contamination. Further, examination of the engine revealed that the engine's left and right carburetor float bowls contained clean fuel. During a test run of the engine, the engine was started and run at idle before running up to power. The postaccident engine examination and test run did not reveal any evidence of preimpact malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Weather conditions at the time of the accident were conducive to the accumulation of serious carburetor icing at glide power settings; however, the airplane was fueled with automotive fuel, which may have a different carburetor icing range than that depicted in Federal Aviation Administration guidance for aviation fuel. Additionally, the airplane was at takeoff power and not glide/idle power when the power loss occurred. Thus, it is not likely that the formation of serious carburetor icing occurred. A reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined because a postaccident engine examination and test run did not reveal any evidence of preimpact malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15LA258
- Event ID
- 20150608X03821
- Case number
- CEN15LA258
- 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: a22329a885d2d163af44eb7b0b00091f53e612f691fad8cb55ee89448d6f56ea; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:23:51.825Z.