FTW98LA396 · Dempsey SKYBOLT TD8 SKYBOLT TD
Dempsey SKYBOLT TD8 SKYBOLT TD · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Winston Field (SNK) to Finney Field (T47)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98LA396
- 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
Dempsey SKYBOLT TD8 SKYBOLT TD
- Aircraft type
- Dempsey SKYBOLT TD8
- 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
- N350TD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Winston Field (SNK), Snyder, TXTo Finney Field (T47), Wichita Falls, TX
- 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 · 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
- Fuel exhaustion
- 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
- Pilot in command › Flare, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a cross-country flight, about 1 hour 20 minutes after takeoff, the airplane's engine lost power. The pilot reported that 'an attempt to flare for landing resulted in loss of airspeed rather quickly and the aircraft dropped from a near stall condition hitting the ground flat and hard.' Examination of the fuel system revealed no usable fuel in the fuel tank. Examination of the accident site revealed no evidence of fuel spillage. The pilot rated passenger had just purchased the homebuilt Skybolt TD8 experimental airplane, and it was being flown to Ohio. The airplane's fuel tank was topped off prior to departure. The planned time en route was 1 hour 30 minutes. The builder of the airplane reported that the capacity of the airplane's fuel tank was 29 gallons; however, the airplane's fuel tank capacity was measured at 22 gallons. According to the builder, the average fuel consumption for this airplane is 20 gallons per hour. The commercial pilot reported to the NTSB that this accident could have been prevented by a 'more thorough examination and verification of all phases of aircraft. Actual fuel capacity - consumption - etc. Don't make assumptions of the other persons work.'
Probable cause
Hard landing due to the pilot's improper landing flare. Factor were the fuel exhaustion due to the pilot's failure to refuel, and his lack of familiarity with the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98LA396
- Event ID
- 20001211X11058
- Case number
- FTW98LA396
- 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: 513bb4a05c54745c65e3bb803cb6d707fcbc5a9a47e6a74d6ebfb0ce8d1547f1; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:20:35.538Z.