ERA19FA048 · Vans RV-12
Vans RV-12 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during initial climb
From Ruckel Airport (FL17) to Ruckel Airport (FL17)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA19FA048
- 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
- 1 · 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
Vans RV-12
- Aircraft type
- Vans RV-12
- 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
- N232VA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ruckel Airport (FL17), Niceville, FLTo Ruckel Airport (FL17), Niceville, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 5 years (built 2013)
- 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 (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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Not determined › Not determined
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The owner of the airplane, who was a flight instructor, completed a 100-hour inspection on the light sport airplane before another flight instructor departed in the airplane on an instructional flight. That instructor reported that, during takeoff, the engine was not producing full power and experienced a momentary loss of power. He returned to the airport and landed uneventfully. The owner examined the airplane and concluded that the loss of power was likely due to vapor lock. They left the engine cowl open to cool the engine, and about 2 hours later, the owner/flight instructor departed with a student on the accident flight. The student stated that, after takeoff, the engine sputtered and the flight instructor took control. He had no recollection of the accident other than that the altimeter indicated 240 ft.
Recorded data revealed that the airplane experienced a significant reduction in engine rpm for unknown reasons about 35 seconds after the takeoff. The throttle was reduced, and the airplane reached a maximum altitude of about 250 ft at an airspeed of 44 knots. Vertical acceleration began to oscillate, the airplane was banking to the left and reached a 68° left wing down bank angle. It then began to descend rapidly; the throttle was advanced and engine speed increased; however, shortly thereafter, the airplane impacted the ground. Examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any preimpact anomalies. The airplane's flight track and recorded data were consistent with it entering a stall during a left turn back toward the airport.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power during initial climb for undetermined reasons, and pilot's failure to maintain airspeed during a turn back to the runway, which resulted in an exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack, and subsequent aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA19FA048
- Event ID
- 20181117X94409
- Case number
- ERA19FA048
- 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: 6d90cc1e1f9b9db7ea23c35b717d7b86887af43cc98e5460ef596c00ea28970a; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:51:09.224Z.