ATL05LA103 · Rutherford Seawind 3000
Rutherford Seawind 3000 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ) to Sarasota, FL
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL05LA103
- 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
- 0
- 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
Rutherford Seawind 3000
- Aircraft type
- Rutherford SEAWIND 3000
- 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
- N7117
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ), Sarasota, FLTo Sarasota, FL
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inadequate
- Throttle/power lever, linkage › Not secured
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The homebuilt experimental airplane was on it’s second flight after assembly when it lost engine power, struck a two story building, and collided with the ground in a field. Post-accident examination of the airplane revealed that the fuselage, empennage, and both wings were separated. The fuselage, including the cockpit were fire damaged. The engine was rotated at the crankshaft flange and internal gear and valve train continuity was confirmed. All six cylinders produced compression. Examination of the throttle connection inside of the power plant compartment revealed the AN310 castle nut had no cotter pin installed. The nut was backed-off counterclockwise on the threaded shaft and no longer secured the lever arm to the throttle shaft. The last maintenance performed on the throttle linkage on the carburetor is unknown.
Probable cause
Maintenance personnel failure to secure throttle linkage on the carburetor which resulted in loss of engine power and a collision with a building.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL05LA103
- Event ID
- 20050623X00848
- Case number
- ATL05LA103
- 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: fea93d6c09caad35338bdca1a471dff6fae8fed823804be209f4549007253698; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:01:13.716Z.