CEN19LA262 · Pietenpol AIRCAMPER
Pietenpol AIRCAMPER · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during initial climb
From Newark Heath Airport (VTA) to Newark Heath Airport (VTA)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19LA262
- 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
Pietenpol AIRCAMPER
- Aircraft type
- Pietenpol AIRCAMPER
- 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
- N899DA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newark Heath Airport (VTA), Newark, OHTo Newark Heath Airport (VTA), Newark, OH
- Aircraft age
- Built the same year (2019)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Just before takeoff on the first flight in the plans-built airplane, the pilot taxied the airplane and ran the engine to bring it up to operating temperature. After takeoff, the airplane climbed out about 50 mph and the pilot lowered the nose to increase the airspeed to 55 mph. He stated that the airplane seemed to be "behind the power curve" and did not "seem to be producing enough power." Sound from a video of the accident flight showed engine power was consistent throughout the flight. According to the pilot, about 150 to 200 ft above ground level, the pilot prepared for an off-field landing in a corn field when the wing tips "started to stall" and then the "left wing stalled." The pilot was unable to recover from the stall and the airplane impacted terrain; both wings separated during impact. The pilot stated that it was likely that the timing slipped or that the mixture on the carburetor needed adjustment, but he did not know the reason for the low engine power on takeoff. A review of meteorological data revealed that the temperature and dew point at the time and location of the accident were conducive for serious icing at glide power. While carburetor icing may have built up during the extended ground run, the sound of the engine during the takeoff did not indicate a loss of power. Investigators were not able to determine the reason for the low engine rpm at takeoff because impact damage to the engine precluded functional testing.
Probable cause
The engine’s failure to produce full power for reasons that could not be determined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19LA262
- Event ID
- 20190810X23256
- Case number
- CEN19LA262
- 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, coordinates. 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: 384416213c7200873e4ba6f1e46671b4a7309f8083578196616da06fbf2ba89b; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:42:01.152Z.