FTW02LA242 · Whittman Tailwind W-8
Whittman Tailwind W-8 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From Double Eagle II Airport (AEG) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW02LA242
- 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
Whittman Tailwind W-8
- Aircraft type
- Whittman Tailwind W-8
- 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
- N3992A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Double Eagle II Airport (AEG), 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Propeller system/accessories, blade › Failure
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 reported to the FAA inspector that the flight was being conducted to evaluate a recently installed ground adjustable propeller. After maneuvering for a short time, the pilot and his passenger decided to return to the airport to readjust the propeller pitch in order to improve the climb capabilities of the aircraft. While returning to the airport, the engine developed "a sudden and violent vibration," and the pilot immediately decided to shut down the engine. After the propeller stopped rotating, the pilot observed that one of the three propeller blades had separated from the hub. A forced landing was initiated into an open field located about 5.5 nautical miles west of the airport of departure. The pilot added that during the landing on a rough and uneven terrain, the airplane touched down hard at about a 1,200 feet per minute rate of descent. The main landing gears sunk into the soft sandy soil, and the tailwheel-equipped airplane nosed over and came to rest in the inverted position. The airplane was reported to be powered by a 115 horsepower Lycoming O-235-C1A engine. The engine was driving a 3-bladed Precision propeller, which according to the pilot had accumulated less than 3 hours since installed new on the engine. The propeller model and serial number were not provided by the pilot. The mode of failure of the propeller blade could not be determined. The 331-hour instrument rated private pilot reported having accumulated a total of 38 hours in the accident make and model aircraft.
Probable cause
The structural failure and separation of a propeller blade for undetermined reasons. A contributing factor was the lack of suitable terrain available to the pilot to execute a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW02LA242
- Event ID
- 20020906X01537
- Case number
- FTW02LA242
- 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: b8bcc6f1a75a5b94a8b50d6781579e0fab167d06fdcc4d0075a1f50b10607254; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:23:58.085Z.