ERA24LA201 · Stinson 108
Stinson 108 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during an emergency descent
From Grimes Field (I74) to Minerva Airport (OH15)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA24LA201
- 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
- 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
Stinson 108
- Aircraft type
- Stinson 108
- 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
- N97517
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grimes Field (I74), Urbana, OHTo Minerva Airport (OH15), Minerva, OH
- Aircraft age
- About 78 years (built 1946)
- 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
- Emergency descent
- 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 systems
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that about one hour into the flight the engine rpm began to decrease. The rpm quickly worsened, and he applied carburetor heat, but the engine did not respond before losing all power. The pilot conducted a forced landing to rough terrain, during which the airplane struck a ditch, substantially damaging the fuselage. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation and that loss of engine power was likely the result of carburetor icing.
The weather reported at an airport about 13 nautical miles from of the accident site included a temperature of 14°C and a dew point 3°C. The calculated relative humidity at this temperature and dewpoint was 47 percent. Review of the icing probability chart contained within Federal Aviation Administration Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin CE-09-35 revealed the atmospheric conditions at the time of the accident were "conducive to serious icing at glide power."
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to the due to the pilot’s delayed application of carburetor heat.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA24LA201
- Event ID
- 20240501194190
- Case number
- ERA24LA201
- 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: a4b675844cdce8569677956a04a06954a3d2214a634e71b5446aab8a590eaa8a; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:43:24.640Z.