WPR17LA153 · Clark James T VANS RV8 UNDESIGNAT
Clark James T VANS RV8 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Felts Field (SFF) to Felts Field (SFF)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR17LA153
- 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
Clark James T VANS RV8 UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Clark James VANS RV8
- 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
- N559JC
- Operator
- Jonathan Liard
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Felts Field (SFF), Spokane, WATo Felts Field (SFF), Spokane, WA
- Aircraft age
- About 13 years (built 2004)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, shortly after takeoff, the engine began to "act erratically" and surged. The pilot initiated a turn back toward the airport, during which the engine lost total power and began producing black smoke. The pilot subsequently performed a forced landing to an open field, during which the airplane sustained substantial damage. Examination revealed that the automotive engine's air filter element had sustained fire damage, and debris consistent with molten air filter material was in the throats of both intake openings. It is likely that the engine lost power due to ingestion of molten foam air filter, which obstructed the air intakes; however, how the filter became fire-damaged was not determined. There were no other mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation of the engine.
Probable cause
An inflight engine fire for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information, which melted the air filter element and obstructed the engine's air intakes, resulting in a total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR17LA153
- Event ID
- 20170714X10954
- Case number
- WPR17LA153
- 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: 5339d1e0a93d071d5dfe73506ace49fea5deee2a3bc9e634f2b5ef618190e93c; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:32:35.279Z.