ERA21LA062 · Ercoupe 415 C
Ercoupe 415 C · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) en route
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA21LA062
- 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
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
- N2674H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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 systems
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During cruise flight, the engine lost total power and the pilot performed a forced landing to a road, during which the right wing sustained substantial damage. Subsequent examination of the engine revealed the failure of a fuel filter screen cover gasket from the fuel transfer pump, which transferred fuel from the wings to the header fuel tank. The failure allowed the fuel transfer pump to draw in air rather than fuel. Given this information, it is likely the engine consumed all the fuel in the fuel header tank, and the fuel was not replaced with fuel in the wings due to the transfer pump anomaly. When the failed gasket was replaced with a new gasket, the engine started normally, and the fuel transfer pump operated normally. Further examination of the failed gasket revealed that the gasket was damaged, likely during installation at the most recent annual inspection about 4 months before the accident. Additionally, the sight gauge for the fuel header tank was cloudy and was an unapproved part, which obscured viewing of the fuel level in the fuel header tank and likely prevented the pilot from recognizing that the fuel was not transferring properly from the wing tanks.
Probable cause
The improper installation of a fuel filter screen cover gasket, which resulted in its failure, fuel starvation, and a subsequent total loss of engine power during cruise flight. Contributing to the accident was the unapproved fuel sight gauge, which obscured the pilot’s view of the fuel level in the fuel header tank.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA21LA062
- Event ID
- 20201208102381
- Case number
- ERA21LA062
- 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: 5c6a9371ba33357ac5f212e0bb00ba1852fd3b6c9a2bf586fb503ae7fae7c296; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:27:57.421Z.