WPR16LA011 · Christopher TOM KITFOX 5
Christopher TOM KITFOX 5 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during takeoff
From Battle Ground, WA to Battle Ground, WA
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR16LA011
- 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
Christopher TOM KITFOX 5
- Aircraft type
- Christopher Tom KITFOX 5
- 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
- N533RC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Battle Ground, WATo Battle Ground, WA
- Aircraft age
- About 14 years (built 2001)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 private pilot reported that, shortly after takeoff from his grass airstrip for a local, personal flight, the engine began running roughly but that it then regained full power. The airplane climbed to about 300 ft above ground level, at which point, the engine began running roughly again, and it then lost all power. When the pilot realized that the airplane could not reach a nearby airport, he maneuvered the airplane back toward the grass airstrip because there were multiple fields in the area. As the pilot maneuvered around trees and fences for the forced landing, the airplane impacted a fence, nosed over, and then came to rest inverted.
The pilot had refueled the airplane with automotive fuel from a container. The pilot stated that, although he drained fuel from the fuel tanks during the preflight inspection and found no contaminants, he thought that there might have been some water in the fuel line.
Postaccident engine examination revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. The reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination of the engine revealed no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR16LA011
- Event ID
- 20151014X62259
- Case number
- WPR16LA011
- 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: 18d1f81cf4ba169c658f8a9a4ce7dcc6d6d357d3648b3f2ae2c60aea77470598; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:53:14.000Z.