ATL04LA003 · Whitty Mustang II
Whitty Mustang II · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Topsail Airpark (01NC) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL04LA003
- 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
Whitty Mustang II
- Aircraft type
- Whitty MUSTANG
- 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
- N888PW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Topsail Airpark (01NC), Topsail Airpark, NCTo 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 go-around
- 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/spin; 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, 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
According to a witness, this was the first flight of the recently restored experimental airplane. After a brief engine run up, the airplane took off on runway 03. The takeoff appeared normal with a normal climb out. At about 300 feet above ground level, the airplane made a left turn to a wide downwind and climbed to about 800 feet or pattern altitude. After making a turn to base leg, a gradual descent was made and it seemed that he was going to make a landing on runway 03. On his turn to final he overshot the runway and lined up about 50-feet to the right of the runway. He passed over the intersection of runway 03 and 36 at an altitude of about 50 to 100 feet and added power for a go-around. The engine misfired and his increase in altitude was very slow and at the end of the runway, he started a left turn. During the turn, and at an altitude of about 100 to 200 feet, the witness thought the engine stopped. The airplane rolled to the left, nose dropped sharply and the airplane started to spin to the left. After one turn the airplane dropped out of sight behind some trees. Examination of the crash site found the airplane about 1/4 of a mile from the end of runway 36, 45-degrees left of the extended centerline in heavy trees and vegetation. Wreckage debris was scattered on a 290-degree magnetic heading. No airframe malfunctions were noted during the examination and there was nothing noted during the examination of the engine that would have prevented it from operating properly.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons, and the pilot's failure to maintain airspeed while maneuvering for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL04LA003
- Event ID
- 20031016X01742
- Case number
- ATL04LA003
- 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: d720d1a5a4460b8e7120935c1bb75bf3e08e8e37cc0b741a27287df72e32ed7c; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:55:03.241Z.