FTW03LA150 · Cessna 320-D
Cessna 320-D · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From El Paso International Airport (ELP) to Roswell Air Center Airport (ROW)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW03LA150
- 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
Cessna 320-D
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 320
- 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
- N4111T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From El Paso International Airport (ELP), EL Paso, TXTo Roswell Air Center Airport (ROW), Roswell, NM
- 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
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While executing a left turn for a crosswind departure, approximately 700-800 feet agl, the 1,104-hour private pilot reported he "lost the left engine," and the pilot attempted to land on the airport taxiway. The airplane impacted the hard surface taxiway in a left wing nose low attitude, came to rest upright, and was partially consumed by a post-impact fire. Prior to departure, the pilot performed an engine run-up and the run-up was normal. One witness reported the takeoff was normal, and the airplane made a left turn for a crosswind departure. During the turn, the left wing came down, then the right, then the left again, and the airplane developed a very high sink rate. Two other witnesses reported the airplane "seemed like it was in trouble...something [was] terribly wrong...the aircraft may have stalled then pitched nose down and then we knew he was coming down." Approximately the time of the accident, the winds were reported 22 knots, gusting to 40 knots, and peak winds from 40 to 44 knots. According to the airplane's performance charts, the calculated airplane's single-engine climb performance was approximately 300 feet per minute. Examination of the airframe and engines did not disclose any structural or mechanical anomalies that would have prevented normal operation. The reason for the reported loss of engine power was not determined.
Probable cause
the loss of engine power for undetermined reasons and the pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control. Contributing factors were the gusty and high wind conditions, and the pilot's failure to compensate for the wind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW03LA150
- Event ID
- 20030520X00694
- Case number
- FTW03LA150
- 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: 5d42d833ab5f27fe6923bf9c8b67b1a5bd63e656e5c8a2e0071b849de077bb3d; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:28:15.455Z.