Huntington KIS N506RJ

Summary

On 10 January 2006 at about 17:00 local time, a Huntington KIS registered N506RJ was involved in an accident near Camarillo, California, United States. One person was on board and one was seriously injured. The aircraft was substantially damaged. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

10 January 2006 at 17:00

Classification

Accident

Location

Camarillo, California, United States

Nearest airport

Camarillo Airport (KCMA)

Coordinates

34.2139, -119.0944

Aircraft

Huntington KIS

Registration

N506RJ

Category

Airplane

Engines

1

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Flight Test

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Camarillo → Unknown

Aircraft damage

Substantial

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

LAX06CA088

1 person was seriously injured.

a partial loss of engine power due to the engine's electronic control system reverting to a designed reduced power mode of operation.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

The experimental airplane experienced a partial loss of engine power in the takeoff initial climb, and collided with obstacles and terrain during an emergency landing in an open field to the west of the airport. The pilot stated that he was taking the newly constructed airplane for its second flight. The engine that was installed in the airplane was a automotive Subaru EJ20. He took off from runway 26 and was climbing at 90 mph. Everything seemed normal and then he noticed that his airspeed was 60 mph and the engine sound had decreased. There were no pops or abnormal engine sounds associated with the decrease in airspeed and the engine rpm was down at 1,700 instead of the normal 6,000. The pilot immediately manipulated the throttle to ensure it was fully opened, he then turned the ignition switch off and on in an attempt to reset the electronic engine control. Both actions failed to regain full power of the engine. He notified the tower that he had lost engine power. He decided to land in a field that was off the end of the runway. He was flying at 60 mph and had a rate of descent of a couple of hundred feet per minute. He made an forced landing into the field and was assisted by emergency responders shortly afterwards. The pilot said that the Subaru engine has a reduced power mode intended to operate the engine at a substantially reduced power output if an engine problem was detected by the engine electronic control system computer. He thinks that the engine switched to this low power mode shortly after takeoff. The method he knew of to correct this situation was to turn the ignition off then back on and this should have cleared the fault and allowed the engine to resume normal power output. The underlying reason for the engine going to the reduced power mode was not determined.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.