WPR19TA186 · Glasair SH II
Glasair SH II · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure while taxiing
From San Bernardino International Airport (SBD) to San Gabriel Valley Airport (EMT)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR19TA186
- 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
Glasair SH II
- Aircraft type
- Glasair SH
- 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
- N279G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Bernardino International Airport (SBD), San Bernardino, CATo San Gabriel Valley Airport (EMT), El Monte, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 31 years (built 1988)
- 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
- Taxi · into takeoff position
- 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
- Powerplant system/component malfunction/failure
- 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 power plant
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After the pilot advanced the throttle for takeoff, the engine lost all power and a fire erupted in the engine compartment of the experimental amateur-built airplane, causing substantial damage to the fuselage and left wing.
Construction of the airplane was completed almost 31 years before the accident, and the airplane sat idle for the 15 years leading up to its last inspection, about 8 months (33 flight hours) before the accident. The fire appeared to originate in the area of the gascolator and engine-driven fuel pump, an area that would have experienced relative movement between the engine and airframe while in operation. The airplane was equipped with rubber fuel hoses, none of which appeared to have been replaced since the airplane was built. It is likely that the hoses, due to their excessive age, degraded and became brittle over time, resulting in a fuel leak and eventual fire.
Probable cause
A fuel leak caused by age-degraded fuel hoses, which resulted in a total loss of engine power and fire before takeoff. Contributing to the accident was inadequate maintenance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR19TA186
- Event ID
- 20190630X15152
- Case number
- WPR19TA186
- 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 2019-07-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d74bd5625d5751d766f14ee4f13634456ef8c09a395af02aa18389d841456106; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:20:20.557Z.