FTW82FRD09 · Cessna A185E
Growden Brothers Cessna A185E · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From New Orleans, LA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW82FRD09
- 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
- 2 · 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 A185E
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 185
- 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
- N100TK
- Operator
- Growden Brothers
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From New Orleans, LATo 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
- Loss of engine power
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of New Orleans, LA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT OF THE AMPHIBIOUS AIRCRAFT INITIATED A TAKEOFF ON RUNWAY 10. WITNESSES STATED THAT THE ENGINE BEGAN LOSING POWER. AFTER TAKING OFF, THE AIRCRAFT WAS OBSERVED TO MAKE A SHARP LEFT TURN BACK TOWARD THE AIRPORT WHILE STILL AT A LOW ALTITUDE. SOME WITNESSES STATED THAT THE ENGINE STOPPED WHILE THE PLANE WAS TURNING. OTHERS REPORTED THAT THE ENGINE CONTINUED RUNNING UNTIL THE AIRCRAFT CRASHED. THE IMPACT OCCURRED ON A HEADING OF ABOUT 310 DEG IN A NOSE LOW, LEFT WING DOWN ATTITUDE. THE AIRCRAFT WAS DESTROYED BY IMPACT AND SUBSEQUENT FIRE. DURING THE INVESTIGATION, THE ENGINE WAS DISASSEMBLED, BUT AN EXAMINATION OF THE INTERIOR PARTS DID NOT REVEAL ANY CONDITION THAT WOULD HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO AN ENGINE FAILURE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW82FRD09
- Event ID
- 20020917X02140
- Case number
- FTW82FRD09
- 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: d59e77475930cf6891f1cd81221d0805d97074df0aad464d18a5794fe1608376; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:33:30.535Z.