CEN22LA423 · Luscombe 8 A
Luscombe 8 A · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Old Kingsbury Aerodrome (85TE) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN22LA423
- 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
Luscombe 8 A
- Aircraft type
- Luscombe 8
- 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
- N25144
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Old Kingsbury Aerodrome (85TE), Kingsbury, TXTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 83 years (built 1939)
- 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)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 reported that the airplane’s engine lost power at an altitude of about 400 ft agl after takeoff. He attempted to glide to an open field but landed in a wooded area after he realized the airplane would not reach the field. The pilot’s attempts to troubleshoot the power loss were unsuccessful. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage, both wings, and the empennage. Postaccident examination revealed carbon tracking inside the ignition switch that interfered with the proper operation of the ignition switch as evidenced by testing using a multimeter. Once the carbon tracking was cleaned, the ignition switch operated normally. It is likely that the carbon tracking present in the ignition switch resulted in a short, that caused both magnetos to stop functioning and ultimately the engine ceased producing power. Based on the available evidence, it could not be determined how long the carbon tracking had been present inside the ignition switch.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to a failure of the ignition switch from carbon tracking, which resulted in a forced landing and a subsequent impact with trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN22LA423
- Event ID
- 20220915105951
- Case number
- CEN22LA423
- 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: 1a510c6fbf676a0809814afbc637f8fe82156b1be164c7f9ee0549eb8fbd59ff; retrieved 2026-09-16T16:02:36.852Z.