FTW97FA304 · Grumman G-164
Wilmot Aviation Grumman G-164 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97FA304
- 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
Grumman G-164
- Aircraft type
- Grumman G-164
- 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
- N634U
- Operator
- Wilmot Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Maneuvering · aerial application
- 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
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, not possible
- Throttle/power lever, cable › Fractured
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Pilot initiated a forced landing following a total loss of engine power. Examination revealed a fractured throttle cable due to excessive wear & fatigue cracking. The fractured area of the cable was not accessible for inspection due to its location within the cable housing. The 1965 aircraft had accumulated 10,001.96 hours. No evidence was found that the throttle cable had ever been replaced. Mid-afternoon, the pilot felt nauseated; however, he continued the aerial application flights. A land owner found the airplane upside down in a cotton field and called 911. Seat belt/shoulder harness was not worn. Autopsy results indicated the pilot's cause of death as 'acute thrombosis of the left anterior descending coronary artery complicated by multiple injuries sustained in the accident. The pathologists reported that the autopsy demonstrated evidence of compressional asphyxia.'
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to a fractured throttle cable because the cable housing prevents an inspection of the cable by maintenance personnel. Factors were the pilot's impairment due to a heart attack, the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing, and the pilot's failure to use the seat belt/shoulder harness.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97FA304
- Event ID
- 20001208X08610
- Case number
- FTW97FA304
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1997-08-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9f12698b391b06694599e8f9b2313459ce3c6a0cbc6c63336d5794045424fd0f; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:51:37.313Z.