FTW92FA197 · Boeing A75
Boeing A75 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) on approach
From 15R to 15R
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW92FA197
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Boeing A75
- Aircraft type
- Boeing A75
- 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
- N62552
- Operator
- Perdue, Harold F. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 15RTo 15R
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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 (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Engine assembly, crankshaft › Failure, total
- Engine assembly, crankshaft › Fatigue
- Wing › Collapsed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE COMMERCIAL PILOT HAD BEEN TROUBLESHOOTING A VIBRATION PRESENT IN HIS AIRPLANE FOR THE LAST 10 FLIGHT HOURS. AFTER THE BLADE ANGLES ON THE PROPELLER BLADES WERE REALIGNED HE FLEW THE AIRPLANE TO CHECK THE VIBRATION LEVEL. WHILE ON A LEFT DOWNWIND, THE PROPELLER SEPARATED FROM THE ENGINE AND SEVERED A WING STRUT AND PORTION OF THE LEFT WING. AFTER BOTH OF THE BIPLANE'S LEFT WINGS COLLAPSED, THE AIRPLANE ENTERED A LEFT VERTICAL SPIRAL AND IMPACTED IN AN OPEN PASTURE. SEPARATION OF THE CRANKSHAFT WAS A RESULT OF FATIGUE ORIGINATING IN THE THREADS AT A POSITION NORMALLY IN LINE WITH THE AFT FACE OF THE THRUST NUT. THE THRUST NUT ALSO FAILED IN FATIGUE. NUT CONFIGURATION WAS DIFFERENT FROM THE CONFIGURATION INDICATED IN THE ENGINEERING DRAWING. HOWEVER, IT WAS NOT ESTABLISHED IF THIS WAS A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR TO THE FAILURE. THERE WAS ALSO NO EVIDENCE OF OVER TORQUE DURING INSTALLATION.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE ENGINE CRANKSHAFT DUE FATIGUE AND THE RESULTANT COLLAPSING OF THE LEFT WING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW92FA197
- Event ID
- 20001211X15149
- Case number
- FTW92FA197
- 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: 1c4399a8d9f8ce416215dabca07dd0fa4d27e1738e93d2771ac43a1fb2e23eb6; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:01:13.515Z.