ERA17LA109 · Ercoupe 415 C
Ercoupe 415 C · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
From Jackson County Airport (JCA) to Barwick Lafayette Airport (9A5)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA17LA109
- 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
Ercoupe 415 C
- Aircraft type
- Ercoupe 415
- 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
- N99716
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jackson County Airport (JCA), Jefferson, GATo Barwick Lafayette Airport (9A5), LaFayette, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 71 years (built 1946)
- 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
- Landing
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot recently purchased the airplane and was returning it to his home airport. Before the flight, he added 1/2 quart of oil to the engine, bringing the oil level to between 3 1/2 and 4 quarts. About 30 minutes after departure, the pilot noticed that the oil pressure was dropping. He reduced engine power and turned the airplane toward the closest airport. The oil pressure continued to decrease, even though the engine continued to produce power, and the pilot chose to perform a precautionary landing on a road. Upon touchdown, the airplane skidded across the road until it impacted a tree and came to rest in a ditch. Examination of the engine revealed a hole in the oil sump consistent with impact damage, and oil was noted coming from the crankcase breather tube. In addition, oil was noted on the bottom of the airplane from the nose to the empennage. Even after the oil leaked from the broken oil sump and from the breather tube, the postaccident engine oil level was 3 1/2 quarts.
A subsequent engine run demonstrated that the engine would experience a momentary drop in oil pressure indication if the oil sump was overfilled. The engine and the oil pressure gauge otherwise operated normally. Since the pilot lacked operational experience with the airplane, it is likely that he unintentionally overfilled the oil sump, which resulted in an interaction between the oil in the sump and the rotating crankshaft. The interaction likely resulted in air bubbles becoming entrained in the oil and a subsequent oil pressure fluctuation. Additionally, since he checked the oil level following a previous flight, it was likely that the oil had not fully drained back into the sump when the reading was taken. Considering that the oil pressure gauge operated normally after the accident, it is unlikely that the gauge was producing a faulty reading in flight.
Probable cause
A decrease in oil pressure due to the pilot's unintentional overfilling of the engine oil sump, and the pilot's subsequent decision to perform an off-airport precautionary landing, which resulted in impact with a tree.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA17LA109
- Event ID
- 20170219X41753
- Case number
- ERA17LA109
- 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: cc677ff0f5dd0d1436fab7ec8901aeb1303815d93316726cca8f7193ccfc80f0; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:00:57.187Z.