ATL82FIG10 · WINDWAGON
WINDWAGON · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Frederick, MD to Frederick, MD
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL82FIG10
- 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
- 1 · 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
WINDWAGON
- 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
- N8519F
- Operator
- Joe M. Turlington · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Frederick, MDTo Frederick, MD
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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 (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel exhaustion; Stall/spin
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Frederick, MD, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THIS WAS THE INITIAL TEST FLIGHT FOR THE EXPERIMENTAL AMATEUR BUILT AIRCRAFT. TWO GALLONS OF FUEL WAS ADDED TO THE AIRCRAFT WHICH DID NOT COMPLETELY FILL THE TANK. AFTER REFUELING, NUMEROUS HIGH SPEED TAXI RUNS AND LOW ALTITUDE LIFT-OFFS AND LANDINGS WERE MADE ON RUNWAY 23. THE PILOT WAS THEN OBSERVED TO MAKE A NORMAL TAKEOFF AND CLIMB TO ABOUT 100 FT AGL. HE THEN TURNED 90 DEG LEFT AND CONTINUED CLIMBING TO ABOUT 300 FT AGL. ANOTHER 90 DEG TURN WAS MADE TO DOWNWIND AND THE CLIMB WAS CONTINUED UNTIL ABEAM THE MIDPOINT OF THE AIRPORT. AT ABOUT THAT TIME, THE RIGHT WING DROPPED AND THE PLANE ENTERED A SPIN AND CRASHED. THE CONDITION OF THE PROPELLER SUGGESTED THE ENGINE WAS NOT DEVELOPING POWER AT IMPACT. NO INTERNAL MALFUNCTION WAS EVIDENT. THE FUEL TANK HAD RUPTURED BUT THERE WAS NO SIGN OR ODOR OF FUEL. NO FUEL WAS FOUND IN THE FUEL SYSTEM TO THE ENGINE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL82FIG10
- Event ID
- 20020917X02861
- Case number
- ATL82FIG10
- 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: c612e0fdaeb747b4ce1b239609f61ec9570135e969b70dae3cc998508bbb1296; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:05:43.030Z.