CEN18LA209 · Luscombe 8A
Luscombe 8A · Accident: fuel starvation en route
From East Side Airport (3TS0) to East Side Airport (3TS0)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18LA209
- 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
Luscombe 8A
- Aircraft type
- Luscombe 8
- 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
- N72066
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From East Side Airport (3TS0), Longview, TXTo East Side Airport (3TS0), Longview, TX
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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 starvation
- 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 handling/service
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot departed on the personal flight with about half fuel. During the departure climb, the airplane experienced a loss of engine power. The pilot subsequently performed a forced landing to a field, and, during touchdown, the airplane nosed over and impacted the ground. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal engine operation. The pilot reported that he did not use carburetor heat during the takeoff. The use of full carburetor heat during takeoff and landing was stipulated by the airplane's type certificate data sheet, which indicated that a placard is required stating, "Full carburetor air heat required for takeoff and landing." However, the accident airplane did not have that placard installed.
Further, a special airworthiness information bulletin (SAIB) applicable to this airplane configuration noted the need for procedures to prevent the possible loss of power on takeoff and climb and stated that flight testing revealed that fuel flow could be interrupted from the fuselage-mounted tank as a result of acceleration and higher pitch attitudes commonly encountered in takeoff and climb. The SAIB stated that the use of full carburetor heat on takeoff is unconventional yet necessary to ensure continuous fuel flow to the engine. Thus, the pilot's failure to use carburetor heat resulted in the loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to use carburetor heat for takeoff, which resulted in an interruption of continuous fuel flow to the engine and a loss of engine power during climb. Also causal was the lack of required placarding warning of the need to use full carburetor heat on takeoff and landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18LA209
- Event ID
- 20180604X00158
- Case number
- CEN18LA209
- 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: 3789287bcefc981751378da831fef16a50de835ad3fa2050c5e118ccea302353; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:21:57.935Z.