ERA25LA047 · Boeing A75N1(PT17)
Boeing A75N1(PT17) · Accident: fuel related en route
From Robert Newlon Field (I41) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA25LA047
- 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
Boeing A75N1(PT17)
- Aircraft type
- Boeing A75
- 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
- N55464
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Robert Newlon Field (I41), Huntington, WVTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 84 years (built 1940)
- 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
- En route
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While in level flight, the pilot reduced engine power to slow his airplane while waiting for a second airplane to catch up. He reported that the engine power was reduced for an extended period of time before the engine subsequently lost total power. The pilot attempted to land the airplane in a railroad yard; however, the empennage contacted a tree and forced the nose of the airplane down into the soft terrain, which resulted in substantial damage to the lower right wing, fuselage, and engine mount. A postaccident examination of the engine and airframe did not reveal any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. In an interview with the pilot, he stated that he may have encountered carburetor icing as a result of the extended reduced engine power setting. He also stated that he had not applied carburetor heat while operating at reduced power. A review of the carburetor ice probability chart showed that the atmospheric conditions were conducive to the development of serious icing at glide power at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to utilize carburetor heat while operating the engine at low power and in conditions conducive to the formation of carburetor ice, which resulted in a total loss of engine power due to carburetor icing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA25LA047
- Event ID
- 20241119195513
- Case number
- ERA25LA047
- 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: 484f9dffc44ca35d13f67ca571e09c7b06471ad7308e4a9dc65327ad22baba1e; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:29:07.856Z.