WPR20LA239 · Vans RV7
Vans RV7 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) while maneuvering
From Ogden Hinckley Airport (KOGD) to Heber City, UT
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR20LA239
- 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
Vans RV7
- Aircraft type
- Vans RV7
- 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
- N514BS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ogden Hinckley Airport (KOGD), Ogden, UTTo Heber City, UT
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 2005)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 (total)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that during the flight, he switched fuel tanks and shortly after, the engine began to sputter. The pilot turned on the electric fuel boost pump and switched the fuel selector valve to the original position, and the engine began to operate normally. However, a short time later, the engine quit, and despite his attempts, he was unable to restore engine power. The pilot initiated a forced landing to a nearby road during which the left wing struck the ground, the airplane veered to the left, exited the surface of the road, and impacted rising terrain. Postaccident examination of the engine revealed that the crankshaft idler gear shaft was separated from its mount and the idler gear was disengaged from the crankshaft and camshaft. Fretting was observed within the area of the idler gear shaft mount. The idler gear shaft bolts were separated. No evidence of a locking plate or safety wire was observed. It’s likely that idler gear bolts had become loose due to improper installation, which allowed the idler gear shaft to shift and the idler gear to become disengaged from the crankshaft and camshaft, which would result in a loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to the separation of the idler gear shaft bolts as a result of improper installation, which allowed for the idler gear to become disengaged.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR20LA239
- Event ID
- 20200726X51530
- Case number
- WPR20LA239
- 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: 73cdad98cb5c3215c2caf0c1dd94ab0207674e945e76be280dd6e38ac6eee78b; retrieved 2026-09-16T12:16:49.173Z.