FTW98LA261 · Gisclair MURPHY RENEGADE SP MURPHY REN
Gisclair MURPHY RENEGADE SP MURPHY REN · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Lark's Landing (L49) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98LA261
- 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
Gisclair MURPHY RENEGADE SP MURPHY REN
- Aircraft type
- Gisclair MURPHY RENEGADE SP
- 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
- N96VG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lark's Landing (L49)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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Following a loss of engine power during the initial takeoff climb, the experimental amateur-built airplane impacted the ground in an uncontrolled descent. After the airplane climbed to an altitude of approximately 500 feet agl, the engine rpm dropped from a normal cruise rpm of 5,200 rpm to 4,000 rpm and then to 3,000 rpm. The airplane, which was passing over a cow pasture with bails of hay spaced every 50 to 75 feet, began to lose altitude. The pilot attempted to maintain altitude in order to find a place to land; however, the airplane stalled and impacted the ground in a nose down attitude. Subsequently, a post-crash fire erupted and consumed the airplane. The reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined due to the extensive fire damage to the engine and airframe.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for undetermined reasons. Contributing to the accident was the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98LA261
- Event ID
- 20001211X10307
- Case number
- FTW98LA261
- 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 1998-06-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5cca6bb4a4b258d10f1173e47a7845b1ca960481ec9e7b795bd793e4a2ec31b4; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:49:24.124Z.