WPR16LA184 · OGG Richard A OGG GLASAIR I
OGG Richard A OGG GLASAIR I · Accident: loss of engine power (total) while maneuvering
From Reno-Stead Airport (RTS) to Reno-Stead Airport (RTS)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR16LA184
- 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
OGG Richard A OGG GLASAIR I
- Aircraft type
- Ogg Richard OGG GLASAIR
- 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
- N70GG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reno-Stead Airport (RTS), Reno, NVTo Reno-Stead Airport (RTS), Reno, NV
- Aircraft age
- About 20 years (built 1996)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airline transport pilot reported that the engine operated normally during the takeoff and initial climb to join up in race formation for the start of a closed course air race. During the initial climb, the pilot tested the nitrous system with no anomalies noted.
At the start of the race, the airplanes began a descent toward the first pylon. The pilot reported that she smoothly opened the throttle to full and turned the nitrous system on. The airplane flew normally as it accelerated, and the engine sounds were normal. As the airplane passed pylon No. 5, the engine suddenly stopped producing power. The pilot then pulled up and declared a mayday. She subsequently saw smoke begin to fill the cabin and flames on both sides of the engine cowling and in the cockpit under the instrument panel. The pilot subsequently landed on a runway, and emergency personnel extinguished the fire.
The airplane owner reported that the engine had backfired before the loss of power. The backfire caused an explosion in the induction system, which broke the induction elbow. The throttle body and nitrous injector dropped into the bottom of the cowling and sprayed flammable fluid into the engine compartment, which resulted in the fire and loss of power.
Probable cause
The failure of an induction elbow following an engine backfire, which resulted in an in-flight fire and loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR16LA184
- Event ID
- 20160920X14417
- Case number
- WPR16LA184
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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: ee91582e309c85d9375c5126ad1ab59791395552b336dbd32051b268d00e700a; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:17:07.667Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure, destination. RTS is Reno/Stead Airport in Reno, Nevada, which matches the event location (Reno, NV, coordinates 39.677223, -119.877777) and the Reno air races described in the narrative; the state code RI is wrong. RTS is Reno/Stead Airport in Reno, Nevada, which matches the event location (Reno, NV, coordinates 39.677223, -119.877777) and the Reno air races described in the narrative; the state code RI is wrong.