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Atlas / NTSB / MKC89LA047

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event MKC89LA047

1988-12-28 DERBY, Kansas, United States Airport · K50 Minor 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Factual narrative

DRG AN ENG RUN-UP BEFORE A SIMULATED INSTRUMENT FLT, THE CREW NOTICED THE CARB HEAT CONTROL WOULD ONLY MOVE ABOUT 1/2 OF ITS NORMAL TRAVEL. THE PLTS DISCUSSED THE MALFUNCTION & RAN THE ENG FOR ANOTHER 1 TO 2 MIN UNTIL THE OIL TEMP GAUGE INDCD A TEMP RISE. DRG TAKEOFF, THE ACFT WAS CLIMBING THRU ABOUT 400 FT AGL WHEN THE ENG BEGAN TO LOSE POWER. EMERGENCY PROCEDURES WERE FLWD, BUT THERE WAS NO SIGNIFICANT GAIN IN ENG POWER. AN ATTEMPT WAS MADE TO RETURN & LAND; HOWEVER, THE PLTS WERE UNABLE TO REACH THE ARPT. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT HIT TREETOPS & CRASHED SHORT OF THE RWY. LATER, AN EXAM REVEALED THERE WAS FROZEN WATER ON THE INSIDE OF THE ENG AIR INTAKE FILTER. NO PREIMPACT MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION WAS FOUND, EXCEPT FOR THE RESTRICTED TRAVEL OF THE CARB HEAT CONTROL. METEOROLOGICAL CONDS WERE RPRTD TO BE CONDUCIVE TO CARB ICING. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1988_MKC89LA047.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (icing). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗