ATL97LA053 · Catchot HAULER
Catchot HAULER · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From 2A3 · Bessemer, AL to Linwood Airport (MS06)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL97LA053
- 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
Catchot HAULER
- Aircraft type
- Catchot HAULER
- 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
- N301A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 2A3 · Bessemer, ALTo Linwood Airport (MS06), Wiggins, MS
- 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)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Ignition system › Improper
- Ignition system, ignition coil › Shorted
- Manufacturer › Installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that takeoff and climb to 2000 feet were normal. He said that about 20 minutes after takeoff, smoke filled the cockpit. He also noticed that the engine tachometer needle had dropped to zero and the engine had lost power. The pilot, selected a nearby field for an emergency landing. The airplane collided with two trees short of the intended touchdown point. Examination of the airplane disclosed that the engine was equipped with a dual electronic ignition system. Two three-ohm coils were to have been installed on the engine (at the manufacturer) as the ignition source instead of magnetos. Examination of the coil assemblies disclosed that both assemblies had shorted and that they were not functional. Subsequent research disclosed that the three-ohm coils also require the installation of a two-ohm ballast resistor into the ignition system. No ballast resistors were installed on N301A. Also, no airworthiness certificate had been issued for this airplane.
Probable cause
the engine manufacturer's failure to install ballast resistors in the ignition system, which resulted in an electrical short in the dual ignition system and subsequent loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL97LA053
- Event ID
- 20001208X07662
- Case number
- ATL97LA053
- 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: a9f8649a2546a9e73a8d33cabba0c3dd441fb6bca41dba9f98a5ce28250d90e7; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:29:00.676Z.