WPR18LA224 · Cessna 140 Undesignat
Cessna 140 Undesignat · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Nampa, ID to Nampa, ID
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR18LA224
- 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
Cessna 140 Undesignat
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 140
- 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
- N89093
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nampa, IDTo Nampa, ID
- Aircraft age
- About 72 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
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a low pass over the runway, the pilot advanced the throttle, but the engine failed to respond. After switching fuel tanks, the pilot initiated a forced landing to a shallow part of a river that paralleled the runway. The airplane came to rest upright in the river, partially submerged, and sustained substantial damage to the lower fuselage and firewall.
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the engine initially would not run. The carburetor was removed, partially disassembled, and examined. Evidence of corrosion was observed in the float bowl. The carburetor bowl was cleaned internally, reassembled, and reinstalled on the engine. Additional attempts to run the engine revealed that the engine would not run at power settings below 1,300 rpm.
Subsequent examination of the carburetor revealed that the throttle shaft was loose in its bushings or mounting to the casting. When the carburetor was installed on a fuel flow bench, immediate leaks were noted audibly, one at the throttle shaft seals and one in the area of the accelerator pump. Indications of blockage in the idle chambers of the carburetor were present, and at idle ranges, the fuel flows were significantly out of specification which likely led to the loss of engine power. Removal of the idle tube showed significant corrosion and contaminants in that area. The source of contaminants was not determined.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power during a low pass as a result of a blockage of the carburetor idle chambers which led to a forced landing in a river.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR18LA224
- Event ID
- 20180814X90902
- Case number
- WPR18LA224
- 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, 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: e866a1f7fbb87e12f722e2e2438fdd9ebf086635abc7bd851a86493655362bb5; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:05:50.888Z.