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NYC99FA078 · Deleeuw SPRINT 1000 SPRINT 100

20 Mar 1999 · Lakewood, NJ, United States

Deleeuw SPRINT 1000 SPRINT 100 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route

From NJ (no airport) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
NYC99FA078
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
Completed
API-reported fatalities
1 · all aircraft and ground
Ground fatalities
0
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

Deleeuw SPRINT 1000 SPRINT 100

Aircraft type
Deleeuw SPRINT 1000
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
UNREG
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From NJ (no airport)To not recorded
Aircraft age
Not recorded
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
En route · climb to cruise
First occurrenceThe 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
Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
Destroyed

Cause areas

No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.

Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Lakewood, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.

NTSB narrative

The unregistered homebuilt airplane experienced an engine failure, then began a left turn, which evolved into a cartwheel prior to impact. The engine's normal exhaust gas temperature range was 930 degrees to 1,150 degrees Fahrenheit, while the maximum temperature was 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit. The passenger remembered seeing a digital readout, as it passed through the number 1,168. Engine teardown revealed scuffing on the magneto piston, in the vicinity of the exhaust port, on the upper half of the piston skirt. Within the scuffing, carbon deposits were observed. Scuffing and carbon fill were also found at the 4 o'clock and 7 o'clock positions, relative to the exhaust port, also on the upper half of the piston skirt. The piston rings and cylinder walls exhibited scuffing as well, which positionally corresponded to the scuffing on the cylinder skirt.

Probable cause

The pilot's loss of control, which resulted in an unintentional stall/spin after an engine failure. A factor in the accident was the engine failure, which occurred when the magneto piston seized within the cylinder sleeve during an overtemp event.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record NYC99FA078
Event ID
20001205X00378
Case number
NYC99FA078
Dataset
historical-pre2008
Source SHA-256
89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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. 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: 9b9f26455de386bbbda59b74bff9e105e61699a2a62f5d989d294284dc7bedcb; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:12:22.513Z.