ERA18TA255 · Calvin Nate H VELOCITY STD RG E
Calvin Nate H VELOCITY STD RG E · Accident: fuel related on approach
From Columbus Airport (CSG) to Tri-Cities Regional TN/VA Airport (TRI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18TA255
- 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
Calvin Nate H VELOCITY STD RG E
- Aircraft type
- Calvin Nate VELOCITY STD RG
- 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
- N67WR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Columbus Airport (CSG), Columbus, GATo Tri-Cities Regional TN/VA Airport (TRI), Kingsport, TN
- Aircraft age
- About 20 years (built 1998)
- 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 · IFR final 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
- Fuel related
- 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 systems
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot reported that, during a low power visual approach to land, the experimental, amateur-built airplane became low and slow on final approach. When he increased power to arrest the descent, the engine did not respond, and the airplane continued to descend, stalled, and impacted the approach lighting system and terrain before coming to rest about 400 ft short of the runway threshold. The fuselage, canard, and both wings sustained substantial damage. Postaccident examination of the airplane did not reveal any evidence of a preimpact mechanical malfunction or failure that would have precluded normal operation.
Weather conditions at the time were conducive to the formation of serious carburetor icing at glide power. The carburetor heat lever was found in the off position, and the pilot reported that he did not use carburetor heat for the approach to landing; thus, carburetor ice likely formed and reduced the power available to stop the descent into the approach lights and terrain.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to use carburetor heat in conditions conducive to serious carburetor icing at glide power, which resulted in a partial loss of power and an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18TA255
- Event ID
- 20180919X12853
- Case number
- ERA18TA255
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2018-09-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1a8c5ed86ea5999f9237697b82951f9a6f469a47001ef9822a21c65e6761d18f; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:15:24.715Z.