ERA18LA242 · Stinson 108 3
Stinson 108 3 · Accident: fuel contamination during initial climb
From Indiana County–Jimmy Stewart Airport (IDI) to Indiana County–Jimmy Stewart Airport (IDI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18LA242
- 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
Stinson 108 3
- Aircraft type
- Stinson 108
- 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
- N4059C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Indiana County–Jimmy Stewart Airport (IDI), Indiana, PATo Indiana County–Jimmy Stewart Airport (IDI), Indiana, PA
- Aircraft age
- About 69 years (built 1949)
- 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
- Fuel contamination
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot and instructor departed on a local instructional flight, completing about 35 minutes of airwork before returning to the airport to practice takeoffs and landings. They performed several landings and used full carburetor heat during each approach. During the initial climb for the last takeoff, the engine response was "normal" until about 300 ft above ground level, when the engine "abruptly" lost total power. The flight instructor took the flight controls, attempted to restore engine power, and turned the airplane toward a clearing, where it impacted trees before impacting the ground. Fuel samples from the wings, gascolator, and carburetor revealed solid debris similar to dirt and orange sealant in all samples. Additionally, an air filter element was found lodged in the carburetor venturi. Because the airplane had flown for a few hours since maintenance was completed and the engine stopped producing power "abruptly," it is likely that the engine was starved of fuel as a result of the debris that migrated through the fuel system, which resulted in the total loss of engine power.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power as a result of debris contamination of the fuel, which resulted in fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18LA242
- Event ID
- 20180902X95600
- Case number
- ERA18LA242
- 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: 46a61bb9b4c98223b50af780c5751b142a4bd2fcc47a7d346899064666392cd5; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:11:19.345Z.