ATL98LA012 · Roebuck RANS S-10 SAKOTA RANS S-10
Roebuck RANS S-10 SAKOTA RANS S-10 · Accident: fire during initial climb
From Jim Hamilton L.B. Owens Airport (CUB) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL98LA012
- 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
Roebuck RANS S-10 SAKOTA RANS S-10
- Aircraft type
- Roebuck RANS S-10 SAKOTA
- 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
- N803DR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jim Hamilton L.B. Owens Airport (CUB)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
- Fire
- 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
- Engine compartment › Fire
- Kit manufacturer › Material inadequate, improper
- Lubricating system, oil cooler › Improper
- Lubricating system, oil tubing › Overtemperature
- Pilot in command › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After takeoff, the airplane developed an engine compartment fire that spread to the fuselage after the airplane landed. According to an FAA inspector, there were blue vinyl/plastic tubing lines in the engine compartment, close to the exhaust pipes. There was evidence these lines began burning after being exposed to heat from the exhaust. The kit manufacturer stated that these lines were not supposed to be used forward of the firewall, and all lines within the engine compartment should have been routed according to engineering drawings and common sense. The owner/pilot/builder stated the drawings that he received depicted the blue tubing lines as part of the cooling and oil venting system, inside the engine compartment. He also stated that the engineering drawings he received for the routing of lines within the engine compartment were not based on the engine used in his airplane. Drawings provided to the Safety Board by the kit manufacturer showed the blue lines as part of the cooling system within the engine compartment.
Probable cause
the airplane builder's improper routing of vinyl/plastic cooling/vent line(s) for the engine oil system, and improper materials supplied by the manufacturer, which led to overheating of the line(s) in the engine compartment and an in-flight fire.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL98LA012
- Event ID
- 20001208X09133
- Case number
- ATL98LA012
- 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: d139592e58bdbfae7a43ca21b7852351f5feffcd586f0b8eeb1888cfde817c6d; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:11:11.456Z.