ANC18LA038 · James Wiebe BELITE PIPPER
James Wiebe BELITE PIPPER · Accident: fuel related on approach
From Lake Hood Seaplane Base (LHD) to Lake Hood Seaplane Base (LHD)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC18LA038
- 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 Wiebe BELITE PIPPER
- Aircraft type
- James Wiebe BELITE PIPPER
- 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
- N3748
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lake Hood Seaplane Base (LHD), Anchorage, AKTo Lake Hood Seaplane Base (LHD), Anchorage, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2017)
- 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 go-around
- 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
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he was conducting a postmaintenance flight in the experimental amateur-built airplane in the traffic pattern. While landing, he applied full throttle to go around, but when the airplane was about 150 ft above ground level, the engine lost total power. During the forced landing, the airplane landed long, bounced, descended into a fence, and came to rest inverted, which resulted in substantial damage to the fuselage and both wings.
The engine had been altered from its original state by the addition of an after-market, high-displacement cylinder/piston kit to increase performance and horsepower of the engine. The kit, as installed, replaced the crankshaft, camshaft, engine gaskets, cylinders, and pistons. The pilot stated that he had been discussing with the kit manufacturer a problem with fuel flow to the engine and, thus, altered the fuel supply system with larger fuel lines. No modifications were made to the carburetors.
Because the carburetors were not altered, it is likely that the engine was not receiving enough fuel for full power operation, which resulted in a total loss of engine power during the go-around attempt.
Probable cause
An inadequate fuel supply to the engine, which resulted in a total loss of engine power and subsequent impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC18LA038
- Event ID
- 20180524X22838
- Case number
- ANC18LA038
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2018-05-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b0183863a1cb4f7adc4a25010366a790eea84c6b97c663acbb864175cabc40f2; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:14:36.986Z.