CEN21LA047 · Ercoupe 415 C
Ercoupe 415 C · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) while maneuvering
From 1FO · Ardmore, OK to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21LA047
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Ercoupe 415 C
- Aircraft type
- Ercoupe 415
- 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
- N331BW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 1FO · Ardmore, OKTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 74 years (built 1946)
- 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 · low-altitude flying
- 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 power plant
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was performing a local flight with two passengers onboard the two-seat airplane. After flying two passes over a house, the pilot felt a “slight shudder” and thought the airplane had flown through its own propeller wash. The engine then started to vibrate, and the pilot was not able to control the vibration by adjusting the throttle. The pilot set the airplane up in a glide configuration at which time the airplane banked to the left. The pilot applied full right aileron control, but it did not stop the left turn. The pilot was attempting to land the airplane in a field when it contacted a tree and came to rest inverted.
A postaccident examination revealed no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airframe, including the flight controls, and engine that would have precluded normal operation. It was determined that the airplane was 48 pounds over its maximum gross weight when the pilot started the engine. A review of local area meteorological data showed that at the time of the accident, the airplane was likely operating in conditions conducive to the formation of serious icing conditions (at cruise power). The pilot reported he did not apply the carburetor heat when the engine began to lose power.
It is likely the engine sustained a partial loss of engine power in flight due to the formation of carburetor icing, which resulted in the attempted forced landing.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper decision to takeoff with 3 persons in a 2-place airplane and over maximum gross weight, and his failure to apply carburetor heat when the airplane’s engine experienced carburetor ice and a partial loss of power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21LA047
- Event ID
- 20201109102256
- Case number
- CEN21LA047
- 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: 2b9a9e722ce84ea4316ede18637bed1378008b8d09dd795f85e5115e67cfb695; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:21:28.330Z.