GAA18CA503 · Champion 8GCBC
Coastal Air Sign Champion 8GCBC · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) on approach
From Jack Edwards National Airport (JKA) to Jack Edwards National Airport (JKA)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA503
- 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
Champion 8GCBC
- Aircraft type
- Champion 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
- N88287
- Operator
- Coastal Air Sign
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jack Edwards National Airport (JKA), Gulf Shores, ALTo Jack Edwards National Airport (JKA), Gulf Shores, AL
- Aircraft age
- About 44 years (built 1974)
- 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
- 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 (partial)
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot in the tailwheel-equipped airplane reported that, during a banner towing operation, the ground crew attempted to connect the banner to the hook, but the banner did not connect and became caught on the tailwheel. The pilot made several approaches over the field to dislodge the banner. He reported that, during his last attempt to dislodge the banner, he moved the throttle to idle and made a normal descent to drop the banner. The banner remained caught on the tailwheel, and he stopped the descent and then moved the throttle from idle to full power. However, the engine sputtered, and the power did not increase. He then visually and physically confirmed that the mixture was in the full-rich position and that the primer was in the closed-and-locked position. He attempted moving the throttle from idle to full power two more times with no subsequent change in engine power. The pilot subsequently made a forced landing on the southwest corner of the field, and the airplane collided with uneven terrain and trees.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings and the fuselage.
The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
During a postaccident interview, the pilot reported that, during the low-power setting approaches to release the banner, he did not use carburetor heat. The pilot reported that the temperature about the time of the accident was 80°F. The METAR at the nearest airport reported that the dew point about the time of the accident was 72°F. The relative humidity was about 77%. The atmospheric conditions at the time of the accident were conducive to the accumulation of serious carburetor icing. Federal Aviation Administration Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin CE-09-35 recommends the use of carburetor heat when operating in conditions of visible moisture or high humidity while on approach with low-power settings. The pilot's failure to use carburetor heat likely resulted in the accumulation of carburetor icing during the low-power setting approaches and led to the partial loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to use carburetor heat during a low-power setting approach in conditions conducive to carburetor icing, which resulted in a partial loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA503
- Event ID
- 20180823X90614
- Case number
- GAA18CA503
- 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. 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: c4e1d71a35096b5045eb6efa4a8b58f64adcf558228bfc8a2003dc759d037a77; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:08:50.300Z.