SEA03FA110 · Harshbarger W/Reed RV-8
Harshbarger W/Reed RV-8 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Grants Pass Airport (3S8) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA03FA110
- 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
- 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
Harshbarger W/Reed RV-8
- Aircraft type
- Harshbarger W/reed RV-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
- N863Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grants Pass Airport (3S8), Grants Pass, ORTo 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
- 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 contamination; Tree(s)
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Contamination, other than water
- Fuel injection control/system › Corroded
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, delayed
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/builder of the RV-8, in preparation for the sale of the aircraft, had been conducting taxi tests and power checks for several days before the accident. Additionally, the aircraft had not been flown in about a year. On the afternoon of the accident he departed runway 30 and shortly thereafter radioed that he was having engine problems and was going to try to make it back to the airport. Witnesses observed the aircraft midfield on downwind at the time these transmissions were made but the aircraft continued well past the abeam position and did not commence the base turn until about one-half mile beyond the abeam position. The aircraft struck scrub trees at the midspan location of each wing and then crashed in a lightly wooded area approximately 3,300 feet short of the threshold of runway 30. The cockpit interior space sustained no deformation or space reduction with the exception of an impact at the top edge of the aluminum glare shield, and the instrument panel was intact with no broken/cracked instrument glass. The pilot was found with his seatbelt fastened and his shoulder harness unfastened and behind him at the accident site. A review of the pilot's personal medical records revealed that the pilot was taking amitriptyline (a prescription antidepressant also known by the trade name Elavil) for insomnia, and hydrocodone (a prescription narcotic) for chronic abdominal pain. Nortriptyline (a prescription antidepressant and metabolite of amitriptyline) was found at very high levels in the pilot's blood. In addition, a low level of doxylamine (an over-the-counter sleep aid) was detected in the pilots blood and amitriptyline, nortriptyline, doxylamine, hydrocodone, and metabolites of hydrocodone were detected in his urine. Post-crash examination revealed no mechanical malfunction with the aircraft's powerplant, systems or controls with the exception of the aircraft's Bendix fuel servo which, upon disassembly, was found to have extensive internal corrosion and contamination.
Probable cause
Corrosion and contamination within the fuel servo unit and the pilot's delayed turn back to the runway. Contributing factors were trees and the pilot's impairment due to prescription medication.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA03FA110
- Event ID
- 20030624X00947
- Case number
- SEA03FA110
- 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: 94881f79362bf1774f3d736cf34d65962187ff45a3861181f32011dd041d14bc; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:08:28.932Z.