IAD00LA014 · Prudhomme VELOCITY RG 173 VELOCITY R
Prudhomme VELOCITY RG 173 VELOCITY R · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From FCI to Newport News Williamsburg International Airport (PHF)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD00LA014
- 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
Prudhomme VELOCITY RG 173 VELOCITY R
- Aircraft type
- Prudhomme VELOCITY RG 173
- 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
- N242JP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From FCITo Newport News Williamsburg International Airport (PHF), Newport News, VA
- 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 · climb to 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
- 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
- Engine assembly › Overtemperature
- Lubricating system, oil line › Disconnected
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, lubrication, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that 2 to 3 minutes after takeoff, the cockpit filled with thick smoke that smelled of burning oil, and the engine oil temperature registered above the upper limit. The pilot turned the airplane back for the departure airport and configured the airplane for landing. No corresponding increase in thrust was realized from increased engine power and propeller rpm adjustments, so the landing gear was raised in an attempt to extend glide performance. The airport could not be reached, and the pilot performed an off-airport landing. Inspection of the airplane's engine revealed an open threaded hole on the right side of the prop governor drive adapter. Further investigation revealed a 90 degree fitting attached to a hose laying on the bottom of the cowling. Visual and tactile inspections of the governor drive adapter housing revealed that threads were still present, but were damaged. The 90 degree fitting was made of steel, and the governor drive adapter of soft aluminum. An FAA airworthiness inspector stated that with the propeller governor oil line disconnected, the oil supply would pump overboard and the pilot would lose all control of propeller rpm.
Probable cause
the improper installation of the oil supply line to the propeller governor which resulted in a loss of lubrication, overtemperature, and a loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD00LA014
- Event ID
- 20001212X20253
- Case number
- IAD00LA014
- 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: cda7af5b14f914993361f4763fec6be9c2218a06dfe608605fa28a9d21a7adfc; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:19:38.975Z.