ERA23LA365 · Sheehan Kevin A VANS RV-8
Sheehan Kevin A VANS RV-8 · Accident during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Orlando Sanford International Airport (SFB)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA23LA365
- 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
Sheehan Kevin A VANS RV-8
- Aircraft type
- Sheehan Kevin VANS RV-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
- N772KS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Orlando Sanford International Airport (SFB), Sanford, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 18 years (built 2005)
- 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
- 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 he had fully fueled the experimental amateur-built airplane before departure and had about 40 gallons of fuel on board. He then reported, and witness video confirmed, that shortly after departure, about 150 ft above ground level, the engine began to “sputter and cough” before sustaining a total loss of power. The pilot maintained flying airspeed, switched fuel tanks, and checked that the fuel boost pump was on. He noticed that there was no runway remaining and aimed for a large yard that was across a lake off the departure end of the runway. He was unable to glide to the yard and impacted the lake, which resulted in substantial damage to the right wing and fuselage. Postaccident examination of the airplane found that the fuel line from the electric fuel boost pump to the fuel sump was fractured and detached from the pump, though given the damage to the pump mounting bracket and fuselage structure surrounding it, it is likely that the fuel line separation was the result of impact forces. No other evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures of the airplane or engine were found that would have precluded normal operation and a 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.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA23LA365
- Event ID
- 20230907193026
- Case number
- ERA23LA365
- 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: 27934ab165421d7dc049abb35c249577a5d4658bbecb8011312c6b1f1eea8220; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:06:04.131Z.