BFO93LA089 · Meador DRAGONFLY SP DRAGONFLY
Meador DRAGONFLY SP DRAGONFLY · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From an unrecorded airport to Butler Co Regional Airport - Hogan Field (HAO)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO93LA089
- 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
Meador DRAGONFLY SP DRAGONFLY
- Aircraft type
- Meador DRAGONFLY 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
- N32T
- Operator
- William R Meador · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Butler Co Regional Airport - Hogan Field (HAO)
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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 contamination; 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
- Fluid, fuel › Contamination
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Maintenance, inspection, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT HE HAD MADE SOME CHANGES TO THE HOMEBUILT AIRPLANE'S ENGINE, SO HE DECIDED TO CHECK THE EFFECTS OF THE CHANGES. ACCORDING TO HIM, THE OIL TEMPERATURE WAS BETTER THAN THE DAY BEFORE, SO HE CONTINUED FLYING TOWARDS HIS HOME. HE STATED THAT EN ROUTE, THE ENGINE 'STARTED TO MISS.' HE STATED THAT HE CHECKED ALL THE ENGINE CONTROLS AND GAGES INCLUDING THE TWO HEADER FUEL PUMPS, AND THEY WERE ALL OPERATING NORMALLY. THE ENGINE EVENTUALLY LOST POWER AND HE MANEUVERED THE AIRPLANE FOR A FORCED LANDING IN A FIELD. THE PILOT STATED THAT WHILE MANEUVERING, THE AIRPLANE STALLED AT ABOUT 20 TO 25 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRCRAFT BY AN FAA INSPECTOR REVEALED THAT THE FUEL FILTER BETWEEN THE MAIN TANK AND THE HEADER FUEL TANK WAS CONTAMINATED WITH FIBERGLASS DUST.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S INADEQUATE INSPECTION OF THE FUEL FILTER, WHICH RESULTED IN SUBSEQUENT LOSS ON ENGINE POWER DUE TO FUEL CONTAMINATION, AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTIAN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED WHILE MANEUVERING TO LAND IN AN OPEN FIELD, WHICH RESULTED ON AN INADVERTENT STALL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO93LA089
- Event ID
- 20001211X12319
- Case number
- BFO93LA089
- 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: 89f22e26b56fe6ea2aaa8a6c0beaabfb961496f3142e7b94011cf42a3b8893b9; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:25:05.759Z.