Boulder City Municipal Airport
Aircraft Accident/Incident Report

Boulder City, Nevada 89005
Friday, March 16, 2001 15:05 PST

The pilot of the skydiver dropping aircraft reported that the engine lost power at the end of his descent from the 12,000-foot drop altitude as the airplane approached a landing 3-mile base leg. When the engine lost power, he checked that the fuel selector was in the "both" tanks position, the mixture was in the "rich" position, and checked individual magnetos; all with no effect. He was then at low altitude and diverted his attention to completing the off-airport landing. A postaccident examination of the aircraft by the operator found about 10 gallons of fuel in the left tank and 5 gallons in the right tank. Examination of the aircraft and engine by the operator's mechanics did not reveal any mechanical anomaly. The cylinder combustion chambers and the electrodes of the engine upper spark plugs were found with a whitish appearance. The operator reported that the pilot had worked for him for 2 weeks. When he was hired, the pilot was given about 10 hours flight training as a jump-plane pilot. The flight on which the accident occurred was the pilot's fourth or fifth unsupervised flight, and required that the jumpers be dropped from 12,000 feel msl. In cases involving high drops, like this, the pilot was taught to descend with the mixture leaned in order to reduce spark plug fouling. The operator reported that he arrived at the accident scene shortly after the police and that no one had tampered with the aircraft. He found the mixture control was "not even half way in."

The loss of engine power during landing descent for undetermined reasons.