ERA24LA032 · Taylorcraft BC12-65
Taylorcraft BC12-65 · Accident: fuel related during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to Hassell Field (KM29)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA24LA032
- 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
Taylorcraft BC12-65
- Aircraft type
- Taylorcraft BC12
- 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
- N29868
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Hassell Field (KM29), Clifton, TN
- Aircraft age
- About 82 years (built 1941)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Fuel related
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was preparing for takeoff after the engine had been running for about 25 minutes. Before departing, he tested the carburetor heat and noted that it was functioning as expected. He applied power for takeoff and the engine accelerated “strongly and smoothly.” About 25-30 ft above the ground during the initial climb the engine suddenly lost about 1,000 rpm. The pilot elected to perform an off-field landing. He maneuvered to avoid a hedgerow and the airplane touched down in an in an area of high grass. During the landing sequence, the fuselage and right wing were substantially damaged. A postaccident examination of the engine and fuel system did not reveal evidence of a preexisting anomaly or failure that would have precluded normal operation. The temperature/dew point at the time of the accident was in the range for serious carburetor icing at cruise power. While the pilot described checking the functionality of the carburetor heat before as part of his normal preflight checks, and leaving it on for “a little longer” than normal as a part of that process, given all available information, it is likely that the temperature of the carburetor dropped during the extended operation of the engine while on the ground, and that during takeoff, the carburetor accumulated ice to a point that resulted in the partial loss of engine power.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power due to an accumulation of carburetor ice, resulting in an off-airport landing and substantial damage to the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA24LA032
- Event ID
- 20231113193368
- Case number
- ERA24LA032
- 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: 6d6d9b2dce060794665105a8f1ff8445448d8a09c06cf10f455de3281e18a8be; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:17:13.607Z.