FTW96LA348 · Vans Aircraft RV-4
Custom Aircraft Vans Aircraft RV-4 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Deming Municipal Airport (DMN) to Garner Field (UVA)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96LA348
- 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
Vans Aircraft RV-4
- Aircraft type
- Vans RV-4
- 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
- XBINF
- Operator
- Custom Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Deming Municipal Airport (DMN), Deming, NMTo Garner Field (UVA), Uvalde, TX
- 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
- Airframe, component or system 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
- Fluid, oil › Leak
- Fluid, oil › Starvation
- Lubricating system, oil cooler › Cracked
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, 'about an hour into the flight I noticed oil running down the inside of the firewall. The oil pressure gauge showed low oil pressure to the engine.' The pilot further stated that he reduced power and began a gradual descent toward the nearest airport. Approximately 12 miles from Van Horn, Texas, the 'engine failed completely.' The pilot performed a forced landing to an area of brush and sand dunes, and the airplane came to rest in an inverted position. Postcrash examination of the engine's oil cooler revealed a crack in the first drawn cup tube.
Probable cause
loss of engine power due to a cracked oil cooler, which led to the loss of all lubricating oil and an engine seizure. The lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing was a related factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96LA348
- Event ID
- 20001208X06501
- Case number
- FTW96LA348
- 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: 79c942c4a31354034995139f5b331851e2f54526c45e5133a167115f662a80c5; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:36:53.731Z.