CEN22LA308 · Vans RV6 UNDESIGNAT
Vans RV6 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Salida Airport - Harriet Alexander Field (ANK)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN22LA308
- 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
- 0
- 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 RV6 UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Vans RV6
- 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
- N184CB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Salida Airport - Harriet Alexander Field (ANK), Salida, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 20 years (built 2002)
- 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 (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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the experimental airplane reported that the engine lost total power shortly after takeoff. The pilot decided to perform a forced landing straight ahead to a flat cornfield which resulted in substantial damage to the engine mount and lower fuselage.
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed a piece of black plastic material lodged in the carburetor throttle body. The foreign object debris (FOD) was similar to the material used with common trash bags. The pilot reported that he did not know where the FOD may have originated. It is likely that the FOD blocked the engine’s air intake, which resulted in a total loss of engine power. The airplane’s carburetor heat valve provided heated air forward of the air filter; thus, the carburetor heat air flow did not bypass the air filter. While is it possible that the FOD may have been left in the carburetor heat system during previous maintenance work about 60 flight hours before the accident, the source of the FOD and when it was introduced could not be determined based on the available evidence. It is likely that the FOD, which was lodged in the carburetor throttle body, blocked air intake for the engine, which resulted in a total loss of engine power.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to foreign object debris blockage of engine air intake. The source of the debris could not be determined based on the available information.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN22LA308
- Event ID
- 20220707105432
- Case number
- CEN22LA308
- 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: e94485fd37d60ab7b057f093b0ddd2d96bfd3b11b6b2965ebb01af86ae75c89f; retrieved 2026-09-16T15:25:46.412Z.