CEN19LA152 · Rand Robinson KR2 S
Rand Robinson KR2 S · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From Poplar Grove Airport (C77) to Albertus Airport (FEP)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19LA152
- 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
Rand Robinson KR2 S
- Aircraft type
- Rand Robinson KR2
- 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
- N886MJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Poplar Grove Airport (C77), Poplar Grove, ILTo Albertus Airport (FEP), Freeport, IL
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 2004)
- 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
- En route
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after departure, the pilot smelled oily smoke and noted a loss of engine oil pressure and an increase in oil temperature. The engine lost power, and the pilot performed a forced landing to a corn field. During the landing, the nosewheel dug into the field and the airplane nosed over, resulting in substantial damage to the wings and vertical stabilizer. An examination of the engine revealed no mechanical anomalies that would preclude normal operations. The source of the oil leak was not identified. The pilot later reported that, after researching and consulting with other pilots who operated the engine type installed on the accident airplane, he believed that the loss of engine power was the result of vapor lock in the throttle body injection (TBI) system. His research indicated that other airplane owners provide “blast cooling” on the TBI to fix the issue. The pilot said that the vapor lock issue likely started at the same time as the engine heated up due to the extra lean mixture. He added that the rear seal might leak and spray oil on the exhaust pipe. He stated that enriching the mixture might have corrected the issue inflight.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to vapor lock of the throttle body injection system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19LA152
- Event ID
- 20190528X74808
- Case number
- CEN19LA152
- 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, cause areas. 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: 2804d52e054092b98ffcd2059de71bb70b2f2bc131d52917ae4d3ddbbcf327ca; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:05:04.571Z.