ATL06LA051 · Eakle R Grandin Jr Talon XP
Eakle R Grandin Jr Talon XP · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Auburn University Regional Airport (AUO) to Auburn University Regional Airport (AUO)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL06LA051
- 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
Eakle R Grandin Jr Talon XP
- Aircraft type
- Eakle R Grandin JR TALON XP
- 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
- N97GE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Auburn University Regional Airport (AUO), Auburn, ALTo Auburn University Regional Airport (AUO), Auburn, AL
- 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 · climb to 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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 starvation; Stall
- 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
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 to a friend before he was transported to a local area hospital that he departed from a grass strip at Auburn Alabama. The airplane climbed to about 200 feet and the engine began to lose power. The pilot made a 180-degree turn to the left in an attempt to return to the airport. The airplane stalled and collided with the ground in a nose down attitude. Examination of the fuel system by the builder, and an airframe & powerplant mechanic revealed that fuel was leaking from the inlet side of the fuel pump on the forward side of the engine-mounted pump. Further examination of the fuel system lines revealed that the flexible urethane fuel line was hardened and leaking where the line was attached over a male barb fitting and secured with a 1/8-inch plastic wire tie. Behind the tie was an additional .32 safety wire wrapping with the end secured with a ten-turn twist. According to the builder, the use of urethane lines while common among light planes has proven to those in the field to require frequent replacement due to the ultra violet exposure, the effects of aging, and the repetitive movement.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed which resulted in an inadvertent stall. A factor was the improper maintenance inspection of the engine fuel lines resulting in loss of engine power due to a loose fuel line and subsequent fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL06LA051
- Event ID
- 20060323X00336
- Case number
- ATL06LA051
- 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: 6d95a8dd8dac1c2f22a622804554516f96fadcb03bf318257df970ee18c80512; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:59:46.924Z.