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FTW96LA396 · Coursey PROSTAR PT-2 PROSTAR PT

22 Sept 1996 · Rio Rancho, NM, United States

Coursey PROSTAR PT-2 PROSTAR PT · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route

From AEF · Albuquerque, NM to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
FTW96LA396
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

Coursey PROSTAR PT-2 PROSTAR PT

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
N822CF
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From AEF · Albuquerque, NMTo 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

  • Fluid, oil › Leak
  • Fluid, oil › Starvation
  • Lubricating system, oil cooler › Fatigue

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

According to the pilot, while on a local area flight, the engine started to lose oil pressure, and subsequently, it lost power. The pilot elected to land on a westerly heading on a 2-lane paved road. On short final, the pilot noticed a white pick up truck approaching in the opposite direction. While maneuvering to avoid the pick up truck, a high rate of descent developed, and the airplane touched down hard. The airplane ground looped, when the left main gear sank on the soft sand while the right tire touched down on the pavement. The airplane came to a stop on the shoulder of the road facing north. Examination of the engine by an FAA airworthiness inspector and the owner of the airplane revealed a fatigue crack in the oil cooler coil, which allowed oil to be pumped overboard.

Probable cause

fatigue failure of the engine oil cooler coil, which resulted in an oil leak, oil starvation, loss of engine power, and a subsequent forced landing. Factors relating to the accident were: the proximity of a truck on the highway and soft terrain that was encountered during the emergency landing.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record FTW96LA396
Event ID
20001208X06740
Case number
FTW96LA396
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: 2bce75c073efe5d58b1633911bf8508eee0776db957ee91921b9526f71a3159a; retrieved 2026-09-22T21:04:19.535Z.