FTW02LA098 · Republic P-47N-20-RE
Republic P-47N-20-RE · Accident: fire during initial climb
From Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW02LA098
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Republic P-47N-20-RE
- Aircraft type
- Republic P-47
- 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
- N47TB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ), Albuquerque, NMTo 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
- Fire
- 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
- Exhaust system, manifold/pipe › Not secured
- Pilot in command › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, who was an FAA certified airframe and power plant mechanic, on the morning the accident, he completed re-installing the engine following its overhaul by another company. He made several engine run and leak checks, and all parameters were within limits and no leaks were noted. He then boarded the airplane for a 15 minute maintenance test flight. The flight taxied to the runway, and the pilot performed a pre-takeoff engine run-up, noted no anomalies and departed. During the initial takeoff climb, just as the pilot reached for the landing gear lever, the cockpit filled with black smoke, and the engine began to lose power. The tower controller then reported to the pilot that the airplane was on fire. The pilot executed a forced landing back to the runway, which had some length remaining. The airplane impacted the ground, and an intense fire erupted (the pilot observed a flash fire through the cockpit). The airplane slid 1,000 feet and came to rest upright. Examination of the airplane revealed that the exhaust interconnect tube to the exhaust collector for the #10 cylinder was protruding through the inlet duct of the lower cheek cowl, and was disconnected from the cylinder. The area around the opening exhibited severe heat distress, consistent with a fire. Oil supply lines and the main fuel supply line were melted through and compromised. The oil and fuel line hoses were made of rubber and were not outfitted with fire shields. No other pertinent anomalies were discovered with the #10 cylinder or the remainder of the engine.
Probable cause
the pilot/mechanic's failure to properly re-install the engine's #10 cylinder exhaust interconnect tube, which resulted in an in-flight fire and forced landing. Contributing factors were the burned fuel and oil supply lines, which were not fire shielded.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW02LA098
- Event ID
- 20020322X00379
- Case number
- FTW02LA098
- 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, coordinates. 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: bffe523b3519d13a000d7e0245fe51cbdf0c24cd33c2696456b7268690132a66; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:41:10.727Z.