FTW95LA343 · Park WIZARD
S-Tec Park WIZARD · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Mineral Wells Regional Airport (MWL) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW95LA343
- 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
- 0 · 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
Park WIZARD
- Aircraft type
- Park WIZARD
- 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
- N5297E
- Operator
- S-Tec
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mineral Wells Regional Airport (MWL)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 · 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Cooling system, lines › Loose
- Fluid, coolant › Loss, total
- Owner/builder › Maintenance, installation, inadequate
- Powerplant › Seized
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE IN CRUISE FLIGHT AT 2,000 FEET AGL, THE HOMEBUILT AIRPLANE'S ENGINE LOST POWER AND A FORCED LANDING WAS MADE TO A PLAYGROUND. DURING THE LANDING ROLL, THE LEFT WING STRUCK A BASEBALL BACKSTOP. EXAMINATION REVEALED A LOOSE ENGINE COOLANT LINE, THE LOSS OF ALL ANTIFREEZE, AND A SEIZED ENGINE CYLINDER. THE ENGINE COOLANT FITTING HAD A SMOOTH SURFACE WITH NO MECHANICAL MEANS (BEAD) TO RETAIN THE RUBBER COOLANT HOSE. THE OPERATOR REPORTED THE FITTING 'APPEARED AS A STANDARD PLUMBING FITTING.' ACCORDING TO THE ENGINE MANUFACTURER'S REPRESENTATIVE, ALL ENGINE AND RADIATOR CONNECTIONS DISTRIBUTED BY ROTAX CONTAIN A MECHANICAL MEANS TO RETAIN THE HOSE CONNECTIONS.
Probable cause
A SEIZED ENGINE FOLLOWING THE TOTAL LOSS OF ENGINE COOLANT FROM A LOOSE LINE DUE TO AN INADEQUATE MAINTENANCE INSTALLATION BY THE BUILDER. A FACTOR WAS THE LACK OF SUITABLE TERRAIN FOR THE FORCED LANDING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW95LA343
- Event ID
- 20001207X04244
- Case number
- FTW95LA343
- 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: 370cb5728c8496709382f3553ce30005b13d857660a8993820bb465ba051e8e4; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:26:20.726Z.