FTW90FA171 · Cessna 320
Cessna 320 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Center Municipal Airport (F17) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW90FA171
- 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
Cessna 320
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 320
- 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
- N377S
- Operator
- Bailey, Glenn N. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Center Municipal Airport (F17), Center, TXTo 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vmc), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Inadequate training
- Pilot in command › Qualification
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A DAY VMC DEPARTURE FROM AN ESTABLISHED AIRPORT, THE AIRPLANE EXPERIENCED A LOSS OF POWER IN THE LEFT ENGINE DUE TO A TURBOCHARGER FAILURE. THE AIRPLANE ROLLED TO AN INVERTED POSITION AND DESCENDED UNCONTROLLABLY TO GROUND IMPACT. THE PILOT/OWNER SUSTAINED FATAL INJURIES. THE PILOT WAS CERTIFICATED FOR SINGLE ENGINE LAND ONLY AND HAD NO KNOWN TRAINING IN MULTI-ENGINE AIRPLANES.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN MINIMUM CONTROL SPEED (VMC) AND LACK OF QUALIFICATION/TRAINING IN MULTI-ENGINE AIRCRAFT, WHICH RESULTED IN LOSS OF AIRCRAFT CONTROL. A FACTOR RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WAS: FAILURE OF THE LEFT ENGINE TURBOCHARGER, WHICH RESULTED IN LOSS OF POWER IN THE LEFT ENGINE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW90FA171
- Event ID
- 20001212X24006
- Case number
- FTW90FA171
- 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: e9a2956c4f3a5d389ad9ce26752bb82da9c7006600f92af3dfab2653c02ce255; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:17:42.504Z.