CEN18LA350 · Cessna A188 B
McElwain Sprayers Cessna A188 B · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during takeoff
From Amelia Earhart Airport (K59) to Amelia Earhart Airport (K59)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18LA350
- 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 A188 B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 188
- 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
- N78417
- Operator
- McElwain Sprayers
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Amelia Earhart Airport (K59), Atchison, KSTo Amelia Earhart Airport (K59), Atchison, KS
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
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 was conducting agricultural application operations. He reported that, after topping off the airplane with fuel and flying two loads, on the third takeoff, the airplane "would not come off the ground." He checked the engine controls, then dumped the load in an unsuccessful attempt to become airborne before the end of the runway. The airplane continued off the runway and impacted terrain, which resulted in substantial damage to the wings and fuselage. The airplane owner witnessed the attempted takeoff and reported that the engine puffed black smoke during the takeoff run. He added that the fuel servo provided a mixture that was too rich, so the pilots would reduce the mixture on the ground and then use a full rich mixture for takeoff. A visual examination of the engine did not reveal any evidence of anomalies. Although the appearance of black smoke from the engine is consistent with an overly rich fuel mixture, based on the information provided by the pilot and no anomalies found during the engine examination, the reason for the partial loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
The partial loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined during the postaccident examination.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18LA350
- Event ID
- 20180825X12218
- Case number
- CEN18LA350
- 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: 17a3003f3a21c13cc4a1e5ec90d004b5726c69d917bc9630842d8503920e9e15; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:09:23.174Z.