FTW87IA108 · Canadair CL-600
Canadair CL-600 · Incident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Dallas Love Field (DAL) to Appleton International Airport (ATW)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW87IA108
- 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
Canadair CL-600
- Aircraft type
- Canadair CL-600
- 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
- N600KC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dallas Love Field (DAL), Dallas, TXTo Appleton International Airport (ATW), Appleton, WI
- 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
- 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
- Manufacturer › Inadequate quality control
- Turbine assembly, turbine blade › Failure, total
- Turbine assembly, turbine blade › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT'S RIGHT ENGINE, WHILE IN FLIGHT, LOST A BLADE FROM ITS FOURTH STAGE TURBINE WHEEL DUE TO METAL FATIGUE. THIS RESULTED IN VARYING DEGREES OF DAMAGE THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE ENGINE AND CAUSED THE ENGINE TO SHUT ITSELF DOWN WHILE CLIMBING THROUGH 19,000 FEET. THE AIRCRAFT HAD DEPARTED DALLAS, TX, 19 MINUTES EARLIER. AFTER THE ENGINE FAILURE THE FLT RETURNED TO DALLAS WHERE A SINGLE ENGINE UNEVENTFUL LANDING WAS ACCOMPLISHED. EXAMINATION OF THE FAILED BLADE REVEALED THE METAL FATIGUE WAS THE RESULT OF EXCESS POROSITY WHICH WAS PRESENT WHEN THE BLADE WAS CAST. THE MANUFACTURER AGREES THAT THIS IMPERFECTION SHOULD HAVE BEEN DETECTED BY THEIR INSPECTION METHODS AND THE BLADE REJECTED. THE BLADE FAILED AFTER ABOUT 400 HOURS OF OPERATION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW87IA108
- Event ID
- 20001213X30676
- Case number
- FTW87IA108
- 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: 6e76f187c51f24fb099a2c94e9be257b9e173cec6f0c1d02351c1f94e55b7af2; retrieved 2026-09-23T13:14:27.481Z.