ERA24FA160 · Arthur B Canning MERLIN LITE
Arthur B Canning MERLIN LITE · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA24FA160
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- 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
Arthur B Canning MERLIN LITE
- Aircraft type
- Arthur B Canning MERLIN LITE
- Category
- Glider
- 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
- N622PC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2023)
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The kit manufacturer manager reported that the accident flight was the pilot/builder’s second flight in the motorglider, the first of which was two days before the accident. A witness at the airport reported seeing the pilot taxi for takeoff and that the engine sounded “a bit rough,” but due to the nature of the small two-stroke engine he was not concerned. The witness reported that the motorglider took off and, when it reached about 100 ft to 150 ft above ground level (agl), the engine sputtered then went silent. Video footage showed that when the motorglider was about midfield, it turned right, then left, then pitched up before the left wing dropped and the motorglider began a near-vertical left rotating descent to ground impact consistent with a low-altitude stall and spin. Postaccident examination of the motorglider revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures of the flight controls or airframe that would have precluded normal operation. Examination of the engine revealed that the original airbox had been replaced with an unrestricted cone-type air filter. The main carburetor jet had also been replaced with a smaller jet, which would have resulted in the engine running slightly lean (the builder had reported that he thought the engine had been running too rich). Additionally, a hole was noted in the center of the engine’s single piston. A metallurgical examination of the piston revealed light gray deposits covering portions of the crown surface around the hole. The piston crown had features consistent with pre-ignition damage. This damage was likely the result of an excessively lean mixture due to the unrestricted air intake and smaller main jet. The hole in the piston would have resulted in a total loss of engine power. The distance from the accident site to the end of the available grass area was about 1,300 ft. The kit manufacturer reported that the motorglider’s typical landing roll was about 200 ft or less. Had the pilot aggressively lowered the nose of the motorglider to maintain airspeed following the loss of engine power, it is likely that he could have avoided the low altitude aerodynamic stall/spin and landed within the remaining available runway.
Probable cause
The pilot/builder’s modifications of the motorglider’s engine, which resulted in an excessively lean fuel air mixture, preignition, piston failure, and a subsequent total loss of engine power during the initial climb. Contributing to the outcome was the pilot’s failure to maintain airspeed and his exceedance of the motorglider’s critical angle of attack following the loss of engine power, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall/spin at an altitude too low to recover.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA24FA160
- Event ID
- 20240402194019
- Case number
- ERA24FA160
- 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, coordinates, 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: 6b67497f4ef6feab8c0f170cc524e1c2ab2796127b0cc3bbc5417064f9c1e43a; retrieved 2026-09-15T08:12:14.404Z.