FTW98LA345 · Fennell VP2
Fennell VP2 · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From No airport to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98LA345
- 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
Fennell VP2
- Aircraft type
- Fennell VP2
- 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
- N2099J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From No airportTo 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Stall
- 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
- Throttle/power lever, cable › Loose part/bolt/nut/clamp/etc
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After about 20 minutes of flight, and while setting up to enter a local landing pattern, the engine began to slowly loose power, and the engine 'quit.' Subsequently, the pilot maneuvered the aircraft toward an open field, and at about 20 to 25 feet AGL, initiated a 'power off' stall. Upon ground contact, the airplane veered about 180 degrees 'violently to the right.' Inspection of the airplane by an FAA inspector after the accident, revealed that a single set screw had been used to secure the throttle cable at the throttle arm. The screw was found to be 'loose' in the carburetor barrel and did not appear to be tight against the cable end. A similar wire cable end was easily pushed through the barrel, indicating that the throttle control cable may not have been securely fastened to the throttle arm prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The loose throttle control cable resulting in the loss of engine power. A factor was the pilot's decision to intentionally stall the airplane close to the ground during the forced landing to an open field.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98LA345
- Event ID
- 20001211X10841
- Case number
- FTW98LA345
- 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 1998-08-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 65faa1a6637aa6e892a1cb4b607658ff4d2a43c48c115da9db910c6b2a38641e; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:43:43.287Z.