FTW97LA296 · Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) ERCOUPE 415-C ERCOUPE 41
Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) ERCOUPE 415-C ERCOUPE 41 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Boone County Airport (HRO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA296
- 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
Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) ERCOUPE 415-C ERCOUPE 41
- Aircraft type
- Ercoupe (eng Research ERCOUPE 415
- 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
- N2899H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Boone County Airport (HRO)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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was performing his fourth touch-and-go at the airport when the engine lost power just after takeoff, approximately 150 feet AGL, and a forced landing was executed on airport property. The pilot was unable to land straight ahead due to REILs located at the end of the runway. The pilot elected to land the airplane on a taxiway that extends to the east of the departure end of the runway. The pilot banked the airplane to the left, while descending, to align the airplane with the taxiway. The pilot reported that the propeller continued to windmill during the forced landing. The airplane contacted the taxiway and traveled 40 feet before exiting onto the grass. The airplane traveled an additional 150 feet at which point the nose gear 'dug in[to the ground].' Subsequently, the airplane came to rest inverted. The reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power for an undetermined reason. 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 FTW97LA296
- Event ID
- 20001208X08615
- Case number
- FTW97LA296
- 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 1997-08-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d402bbfb7791841a7354518dc31623288cf6f909b522105994e9e302afcf1a12; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:55:13.584Z.