WPR26LA155 · Aero Vodochody L-39
Jdi Holdings Aero Vodochody L-39 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport (BZN) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR26LA155
- 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
- Ongoing
- 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
Aero Vodochody L-39
- Aircraft type
- Aero Vodochody L-39
- 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
- N136EM
- Operator
- Jdi Holdings
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport (BZN), BozemanTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 42 years (built 1984)
- 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
- Approach
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On April 10, 2026, about 1210 mountain daylight time, an Aero Vodochody L 39, N136EM, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Ennis, Montana. The flight instructor sustained minor injuries, and the pilot undergoing instruction was uninjured. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 instructional flight.
The flight was conducted in preparation for an upcoming checkride for the pilot undergoing instruction, who was seated in the front seat. The flight crew was performing a practice instrument approach to runway 16 at Ennis - Big Sky airport and were descending through 8,500 ft mean sea level when the pilot began to slow the airplane and configure it for landing.
The pilot stated that as the airplane slowed to 190 knots, the engine rolled back to zero thrust, and the flight instructor reported that when the throttle was advanced, the engine did not respond. The instructor assumed control of the airplane and slowed it to best glide airspeed while the pilot began performing engine relight procedures. The engine did not restart, and with limited altitude available, the crew decided to perform a forced gear up landing to an open field rather than risk ejecting.
The pilot provided guidance to the flight instructor during the final approach and flare, and the airplane touched down facing uphill, eventually coming to rest about 500 yards beyond the touchdown point.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the lower fuselage and both wings during the accident sequence.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR26LA155
- Event ID
- 20260413202806
- Case number
- WPR26LA155
- 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. 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: e9a9f56cc2e033c2d746f96b3773a5b6669342586cf546b53b252f40fe4a859a; retrieved 2026-09-16T21:12:58.910Z.