ATL91IA024 · Cessna S550
Sovran Bank Na Cessna S550 · Incident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to DeKalb Peachtree Airport (PDK)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL91IA024
- 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
- Incident
- 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 S550
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 550
- 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
- N185SF
- Operator
- Sovran Bank Na
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo DeKalb Peachtree Airport (PDK), Chamblee, GA
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Combustion assembly › Failure, partial
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT ABORTED A NIGHT TAKE OFF ROLL AFTER THE RIGHT ENGINE EXPLODED. EXAMINATION OF THE RIGHT ENGINE DISCLOSED THAT THE ENGINE COWLING WAS DISPLACED ABOUT 12 INCHES FROM ITS NORMALLY INSTALLED POSITION. FURTHER EXAMINATION INDICATED THAT THE OUTER BYPASS DUCT AND GAS GENERATOR CASE WERE BURST OPEN FROM THE 12:00 TO 5:00 O'CLOCK POSITION. THE RUPTURE OCCURRED AS THE AIRPLANE ACCELERATED THROUGH 84 KNOTS ON THE TAKEOFF ROLL. THE INVESTIGATION DISCLOSED THAT THE GAS GENERATOR FAILED DUE TO SPOT WELD FATIGUE FAILURE, AND THE EXITING GASES UNDER HIGH PRESSURE BURST THE OUTER BYPASS DUCT, CAUSING EXPLOSION DAMAGE.
Probable cause
A FATIGUE FAILURE OF A SPOT WELD ON THE GAS GENERATOR CASE, WHICH RESULTED IN AN ENGINE EXPLOSION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL91IA024
- Event ID
- 20001212X24564
- Case number
- ATL91IA024
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1990-12-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6150ad5831a255f1511d868196bc1981d9cd4a3d33732cb2a91837c02aa2fe10; retrieved 2026-09-23T05:07:43.976Z.