ATL02LA110 · Kendall, Blair Rans S-12
Kendall, Blair Rans S-12 · Accident: loss of engine power during takeoff
From Prater Ranch Airport (3GE8) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL02LA110
- 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
Kendall, Blair Rans S-12
- Aircraft type
- Kendall Blair RANS S-12
- 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
- N257BK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Prater Ranch Airport (3GE8), Lincolnton, GATo 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Pilot in command › Flare, improper
- Propeller system/accessories, blade › Delamination
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and passenger participated in an ultra-light fly-in at a private airstrip in Lincolnton. After takeoff, the airplane had a loss of engine power and could not maintain altitude. The pilot stated he "could not get any lift" during takeoff. During the forced landing, the airplane landed hard resulting in the collapse of the landing gear. Examination of the airplane showed one of the carbon fiber propeller blades delaminated on the trailing edge. The carbon fiber layers separated at a point several inches outboard from the propeller hub. The engine firewall was buckled, and the front area of the cockpit was deformed. Both wings and the tail boom were damaged.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to the delamination of the propeller blade during takeoff, and the pilot's improper touchdown flare during the emergency landing resulted in a hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL02LA110
- Event ID
- 20020606X00820
- Case number
- ATL02LA110
- 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: 20eea2fa7e130c421e45d6b3cb7ffcb5ae825384fa5f792d5265efe30cb61932; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:39:07.945Z.