IAD98FA015 · Socata TB-20 TRINIDAD TB-20 TRIN
Socata TB-20 TRINIDAD TB-20 TRIN · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Roanoke–Blacksburg Regional Airport (ROA) to Jackson, TN
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD98FA015
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Socata TB-20 TRINIDAD TB-20 TRIN
- Aircraft type
- Socata TB-20
- 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
- N3041J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Roanoke–Blacksburg Regional Airport (ROA), VATo Jackson, TN
- 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 · climb to 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Wire, transmission
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Roanoke, VA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after takeoff, the pilot reported that the engine was losing power and that he was returning to the airport. The controller advised the pilot that he was 1 3/4 miles south of the airport, and he should make a left turn and return for a landing on runway 33. There were no further radio transmissions from the pilot. The airplane struck power lines about 25 feet high, struck a house, and then came to rest on the porch of another house. The second house and airplane were destroyed as a result of the collision and a post-impact fire. A witness, about 1 1/4 miles from runway 33, said he heard an airplane taking off. He said, '... the engine noise was both loud and different, I looked toward the airport, but the plane was already into the overcast-600 foot ceiling. The engine noise was unique, it had a loud beat, like one cylinder was firing directly out the exhaust...when the plane had passed me, from my right to left about the 10 o'clock position the engine skipped one beat, made a louder bang and went silent... .' Examination of the engine did not disclose any evidence of mechanical malfunction that would have precluded operation.
Probable cause
Loss of engine power for undetermined reasons. A related factor was the low ceiling.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD98FA015
- Event ID
- 20001208X09321
- Case number
- IAD98FA015
- 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: b7a29257ea74f109b495ba0a3840b5695a5fbe050766bd88fbc20b5c4973cfb3; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:44:04.807Z.