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Atlas / NTSB / NYC90LA045

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event NYC90LA045

1990-01-03 SLIPPERY ROCK, Pennsylvania, United States Airport · OPN1 None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

LOSS OF AIRSPEED AND AN INADVERTENT STALL BY THE PILOT DURING AN ATTEMPTED RETURN TO THE AIRPORT, FOLLOWING A POWER LOSS DUE TO CARBURETOR ICE.

Factual narrative

THE ENGINE EXPERIENCED A POWER LOSS DUE TO CARBURETOR ICE ABOUT 5 MINUTES AFTER TAKEOFF AT AN ALTITUDE OF 800 FEET AGL AND THE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO RETURN TO THE AIRPORT FOR A LANDING. REALIZING HE WOULD NOT MAKE THE AIRPORT, THE PILOT TURNED THE AIRPLANE 90 DEGREES TO THE RIGHT AND THE AIRPLANE STALLED AT 30 FEET AND STRUCK THE ROAD. ON IMPACT THE PILOT WAS THROWN OUT, HOWEVER HE WAS NOT INJURED. THE FAA EXAMINED THE AIRPLANE AND COULD FIND NO INDICATION OF A MECHANICAL FAILURE. THEY REPORTED THE TOP SPARK PLUGS WERE SOOTY AND THE FUEL TANKS CONTAINED AVIATION GASOLINE. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1990_NYC90LA045.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 (stall). 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 ↗