WPR16LA135 · Bert N Norris RV-6
Bert N Norris RV-6 · Accident: fuel related on approach
From Homeport Airport (11WA) to Jack A Buell Airport (S72)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR16LA135
- 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
Bert N Norris RV-6
- Aircraft type
- Bert N Norris RV-6
- 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
- N916BN
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Homeport Airport (11WA), Cheney, WATo Jack A Buell Airport (S72), St. Maries, ID
- Aircraft age
- About 18 years (built 1998)
- 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 final
- 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
- Fuel related
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot reported that, on short final to the runway, the engine lost partial power. The pilot then switched fuel tanks, activated the boost pump, and pumped the throttle, but engine power was not restored. The pilot subsequently landed in a field about 300 to 500 ft short of the runway, and the airplane nosed over.
Postaccident examination of the airplane and engine revealed no mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The pilot stated that he believed that the loss of power was due to carburetor ice because he might not have applied carburetor heat during the flight. The weather conditions at the time of the accident were conducive to moderate carburetor icing at cruise power settings and serious carburetor icing at descent power settings. It is likely that the loss of engine power resulted from carburetor icing due to the pilot's failure to apply carburetor heat.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power due to carburetor icing, which resulted from the pilot’s failure to apply carburetor heat.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR16LA135
- Event ID
- 20160704X85526
- Case number
- WPR16LA135
- 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: 93af68f8bd4388093fc59ae68233cf7da74a4b89632455e890c1bbfa52385623; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:36:16.259Z.