ERA09LA324 · de Havilland Vampire MK-3
Wings of Flight de Havilland Vampire MK-3 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during an emergency descent
From Frederick Douglass Greater Rochester International Airport (ROC) to Genesee County Airport (GVQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09LA324
- 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
de Havilland Vampire MK-3
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland VAMPIRE MK-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
- N6878D
- Operator
- Wings of Flight
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Frederick Douglass Greater Rochester International Airport (ROC), Rochester, NYTo Genesee County Airport (GVQ), Batavia, NY
- 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
- Emergency descent
- Defining eventThe 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
- Loss of engine power (total)
- 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
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While en-route to his destination, as the airplane climbed through 3,500 feet, the pilot heard a noise coming from the engine and initiated a return to his departure airport. The noise "got louder," and the pilot felt the airplane vibrate during the return. While on final approach for the runway, the engine lost total power. The pilot then retracted the landing gear and prepared for a forced landing to the grass adjacent to the runway. During the landing, the airplane struck a berm, substantially damaging the fuselage. Examination of the engine revealed the oil quantity in the oil sump was less than 2 tablespoons, and no oil was observed in the surrounding area of the engine compartment. The rear bearing in the "hot section" of the turbojet engine exhibited significant scoring, metal fatigue, and erosion. The bearing was completely fused and unable to be rotated.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to oil starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09LA324
- Event ID
- 20090606X60709
- Case number
- ERA09LA324
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 07f058cf90f11a9c3d8c955ccda9bdbb74828a2501570133462ea6edd9155c8f; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:18:36.658Z.