ERA17LA007 · James Bruton FLYING FLEA HM14/360
James Bruton FLYING FLEA HM14/360 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) while maneuvering
From Waterbury Airport (N41) to Waterbury Airport (N41)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA17LA007
- 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
James Bruton FLYING FLEA HM14/360
- Aircraft type
- James Bruton FLYING FLEA
- 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
- N83165
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Waterbury Airport (N41), Plymouth, CTTo Waterbury Airport (N41), Plymouth, CT
- Aircraft age
- Built the same year (2016)
- 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 (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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses reported that they observed the pilot of the experimental, amateur-built airplane performing touch-and-go landings. The airplane flew for about 30 minutes before the engine lost power, and the airplane crashed into trees. The pilot did not recall the accident. Examination of the airframe did not reveal any anomalies. Fuel was observed in the fuel tank, and an examination of the fuel system did not reveal any fuel contamination. Although the wreckage examination revealed that the loss of engine power was likely not related to fuel quantity or fuel contamination, no additional examination of the engine was performed; thus, the reason for the partial loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA17LA007
- Event ID
- 20161010X04452
- Case number
- ERA17LA007
- 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, cause areas. 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: db1c6e92c1e410f2b929b2649ff53b52eec7c05d39d9f6b9a88df46c21c0c43e; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:22:16.514Z.