ATL05TA055 · Cessna T-41B
Cessna T-41B · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Nashville International Airport (KBNA) to Upper Cumberland Regional Airport (KSRB)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL05TA055
- 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 T-41B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna T-41
- 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
- N14449
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nashville International Airport (KBNA), Nashville, TNTo Upper Cumberland Regional Airport (KSRB), Sparta, TN
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 (mechanical failure)
- 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, oil › Starvation
- Miscellaneous, bolt/nut/fastener/clamp/spring › Missing
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
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 stated the flight was cruising at 3,500 feet mean sea level when the engine began to run rough. Moments later, engine oil sprayed on the windscreen and the cockpit filled with smoke. Several hundred yards short of runway 4, the engine lost power completely, and the propeller stopped. The pilot maneuvered the airplane to avoid trees and landed in a field. The pilot stated when the nose wheel touched down, it sank into the soft ground, and the airplane nosed over. Examination of the airplane revealed the empennage was nearly separated aft of the baggage compartment, the fuselage was buckled aft of the firewall, and damage was observed on the engine crankcase. The post-accident examination of the engine revealed the timing reference plug was missing from the crankcase. The timing reference plug threads in the crankcase were not stripped. The crankshaft did not reveal any signs of movement or rotation, and the pistons, rings, and pins in all six cylinders revealed discoloration and mechanical damage.
Probable cause
Improper installation of the timing reference plug by other maintenance personnel, which resulted in oil starvation, and the loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL05TA055
- Event ID
- 20050309X00284
- Case number
- ATL05TA055
- 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: ca00bcb9b4e0dfd2dfd4b21b163a2857694ad7ebd344fbf9036ba3eb4f701c4e; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:09:27.711Z.