ERA22LA416 · William L Bell VANS RV-7A
William L Bell VANS RV-7A · Accident en route
From York Airport (THV) to Shannon Airport (EZF)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA22LA416
- 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
William L Bell VANS RV-7A
- Aircraft type
- William L Bell VANS RV-7A
- 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
- N40WB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From York Airport (THV), York, PATo Shannon Airport (EZF), Fredericksburg, VA
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2021)
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, while in cruise at 2,500 ft mean sea level during a cross-country flight, the engine started to “sputter and surge” followed rapidly by a total loss of power. The pilot completed the emergency checklist by switching fuel tanks, turning on the fuel boost pump, and richening the mixture, but was unsuccessful in his multiple attempts to regain power; he performed a forced landing to a pond due to the densely populated area around him. The airplane impacted the water left-wing-low and was substantially damaged. The wreckage was discarded before it could be further examined; therefore, the reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined because the airplane could not be examined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA22LA416
- Event ID
- 20220914105935
- Case number
- ERA22LA416
- 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: a23fc4a10b4b30a013b9d01a0992aaaa5fd004f8a45d7666693ffa9b2986c352; retrieved 2026-09-16T16:01:15.696Z.