ATL90LA173 · Cessna A188B
Gardner Flying Services Cessna A188B · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From Weedon Field (EUF) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL90LA173
- 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
Cessna A188B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 188
- 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
- N8677G
- Operator
- Gardner Flying Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Weedon Field (EUF), EAUFALA, ALTo 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Maneuvering · aerial application
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, overhaul, improper
- Propeller system/accessories, blade › Fatigue
- Unknown › Maintenance, lubrication, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING AERIAL APPLICATION ONE PROPELLER BLADE SEPARATED FROM THE ACFT. THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH A TREE DURING THE FORCED LANDING ROLL. EXAM OF THE PROPELLER REVEALED THAT A FATIGUE FRACTURE ORIGINATED AT A SCORE MARK IN THE HUB THREADS OF THE BLADE. DEPOSITS WERE FOUND IN THE FRACTURE ENRICHED BY CARBON & OXYGEN. GRAPHITE, THE LUBRICANT USED IN THE PROPELLER ASSEMBLY, IS CARBON BASED. TESTING SHOWED THAT THE BLADE'S HARDNESS & TENSILE STRENGTH WAS BELOW MFG SPECIFICATIONS. THE SAFETY BOARD BELIEVES THAT THE FRACTURE WAS OPENED UP DURING THE LAST PROPELLER OVERHAUL, ABOUT 583 OPERATING HOURS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT. ALSO, OIL REQUIRED IN THE HUB TO ALLOW EARLY DETECTION OF BLADE CRACKS WAS ABSENT.
Probable cause
FATIGUE FAILURE OF THE PROPELLER BLADE WHICH RESULTED FROM IMPROPER OVERHAUL PROCEDURES, AND THE ABSENCE OF OIL IN THE PROPELLER HUB WHICH WOULD ALLOW THE DETECTION OF BLADE CRACKS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL90LA173
- Event ID
- 20001212X24186
- Case number
- ATL90LA173
- 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: b954998addeb08808bd2a89f67ba9dcf8b74959ac594fe38e39bb2c96d42b360; retrieved 2026-09-23T05:17:59.170Z.