CEN24LA317 · Vans RV8 A
Vans RV8 A · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Twin Lakes Airport (2OK2)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN24LA317
- 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
Vans RV8 A
- Aircraft type
- Vans RV8
- 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
- N184DC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Twin Lakes Airport (2OK2), Newalla, OK
- Aircraft age
- About 6 years (built 2018)
- 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 power plant
- Aircraft › Aircraft structures
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that about 40 ft above ground level (agl) during the initial climb from the grass airstrip, engine cylinder Nos. 2 and 3 lost power. About 10 seconds later, engine cylinder Nos. 1 and 4 lost power. The pilot was unable to maintain altitude. He switched fuel tanks in an attempt to regain engine power but noted no change in the engine performance. The airplane impacted trees beyond the departure end of the runway and sustained substantial damage to both wings, fuselage, and empennage. Postaccident examination of the engine revealed an air filter retaining bracket that was fastened to a fiberglass air snorkel/box had separated and was ingested into the No. 2 cylinder. The separated bracket then jammed the intake valve into the open position, resulting in a loss of engine power. Elongation was noted on the fiberglass where the rivets secured the fabricated retaining bracket.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to the separation and ingestion of an air filter retaining bracket into the engine cylinder.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN24LA317
- Event ID
- 20240815194935
- Case number
- CEN24LA317
- 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: local date, investigation status, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2024-08-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6e0a4c4b3d3c7af89534c98bd7907718e353bab09efbd8a98cce5d32ccd6f5a9; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:10:24.183Z.