MIA07LA130 · Powrachute Corp. Pegasus 912M
Powrachute Corp. Pegasus 912M · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Suffolk Executive Airport (SFQ) to Tangier Island Airport (TGI)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA07LA130
- 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
Powrachute Corp. Pegasus 912M
- Aircraft type
- Powrachute PEGASUS 912
- Category
- Powered Parachute
- 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
- N44118
- Operator
- Robert Anthony Nolan
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Suffolk Executive Airport (SFQ), Suffolk, VATo Tangier Island Airport (TGI), Tangier, VA
- 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
- Total 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
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- 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 of the powered parachute observed a noticeable drop in the engine's rpm during the climb, and elected to return to the departure airport. Seconds later, the engine seized. He located a road for the forced landing. During the approach, people appeared suddenly at the intended landing area, and they did not give way. The pilot elected to turn left and fly into a tree. The aircraft impacted the tree, and then descended vertically, landing hard. Postaccident examination of the seized engine revealed all oil had leaked out from an over torqued oil filter, which was changed about 9 flight hours before the accident. The Rotax's maintenance manual instructs mechanics to "screw the oil filter on by hand until it stops at the filter house, then tighten an extra 3/4 turn."
Probable cause
The improper installation of the engine oil filter. A factor contributing to the accident was unsuitable terrain for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA07LA130
- Event ID
- 20070814X01187
- Case number
- MIA07LA130
- 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: 0fdfbb325d928787e1b9f9513321c4a2c844e08901b8474ba950bd9b738ea04d; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:46:09.260Z.