NYC08LA015 · Ryan ST-3KR
Ryan ST-3KR · Accident: propeller failure/malfunction en route
From Cook County Airport (15J) to Perry Houston County Airport (PXE)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC08LA015
- 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
Ryan ST-3KR
- Aircraft type
- Ryan ST-3
- 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
- N780SR
- Operator
- Joseph Mark Ford
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cook County Airport (15J), Adel, GATo Perry Houston County Airport (PXE), Perry, GA
- 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
- Propeller failure/malfunction
- 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, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was flying the recently-acquired airplane on a cross-country flight. During the descent for landing, the engine shook violently followed by the wooden propeller blades separating at the hub. The pilot landed the airplane in a field, resulting in substantial damage. The previous owner had the propeller replaced with an older one prior to delivery of the airplane, stating that he did not want the new owner to "ding up the expensive new prop." Examination of the remaining hub and attachment bolt revealed evidence of fatigue failure due to excessive looseness of the attachment bolts. The mechanic who replaced the propeller did not adequately document its replacement. Reportedly, the propeller that failed had been in storage for 30 years, and showed evidence of gray staining deep into the wood, indicative of significant moisture penetration over an extended period of time.
Probable cause
The improper propeller installation by the mechanic.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC08LA015
- Event ID
- 20071104X01724
- Case number
- NYC08LA015
- 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. 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: 0e2b7879a0bd54de76986d3e97180e3d4421a6aabd85fd98d7b7664fef682107; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:19:46.855Z.