ATL04IA098 · Cessna 208B
Federal Express Cessna 208B · Incident: airframe, component or system failure
From Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL04IA098
- 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
- Incident
- 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 208B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 208
- 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
- N738FX
- Operator
- Federal Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM), Memphis, TNTo 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
- Other
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Emergency procedure › Inadequate
- Powerplant controls › Improper use of
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 the check airman, during a demonstration procedure for loss of engine power, the check airman reduced the power lever to idle, turn on the ignition, un-stowed and advanced the emergency power lever (EPL). The check airman felt a vibration and heard a noise. He re-stowed the EPL and advanced the engine power lever. Flames exited the exhaust and the check airman shut down the engine, and made an emergency landing on a nearby road. After landing the airplane the two pilots attempted to remove the airplane from the roadway, and a passing truck struck the left wing of the airplane. Examination of the fuel flow control unit revealed that the EPL lever dead band was 7 degrees below the minimum requirement of 25 to 35 degrees. The fuel flow control unit began fuel flow at 18 degrees of lever travel. The manual override was disassembled and it was found that the plunger, which compresses the bellows, was allowed to contact the bellows prior to the required degrees of travel. Review of the pilot's operating handbook emergency procedures states: When using the emergency power lever, monitor gas generator RPM when reducing power near idle, to keep it from decreasing below 65% in flight. The emergency power lever may have a dead band, such that no engine response is observed during the initial forward travel from idle position.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper use of the emergency power lever which resulted in excessive operating temperatures. A factor was the improper adjustment of the emergency power lever dead band.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL04IA098
- Event ID
- 20050415X00463
- Case number
- ATL04IA098
- 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: 4793fad92e74b25d249f561b5e94bdc0588e425c832e2b825ee7de1daa1981fe; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:39:44.839Z.