ERA09LA473 · Flight Design Gmbh CTSW
Bowen Donald P Trustee Flight Design Gmbh CTSW · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Okeechobee County Airport (OBE) to Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09LA473
- 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
Flight Design Gmbh CTSW
- Aircraft type
- Flight Design CTSW
- 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
- N535CT
- Operator
- Bowen Donald P Trustee
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Okeechobee County Airport (OBE), Okeechobee, FLTo Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR), Fort Pierce, 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 · climb to cruise
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he was on climbout at less than 1,250 feet mean sea level, at full power, when he heard a grinding noise followed by a total loss of engine power. He made a forced landing straight ahead to a pasture. The airplane touched down in soft, sandy soil, bounced and touched down again. The main landing gear sank in the sand, the airplane nosed over inverted, and the vertical fin received structural damage. Examination of the airframe and flight control assembly revealed no anomalies. The airplane was recovered to a repair facility for further examination and an engine run. About 10 gallons of fuel was removed from the fuel tanks. The oil filter and fuel gascolator were removed and no contamination was present. A replacement oil filter and the gascolator were reinstalled on the engine. The engine assembly was secured in a modified stand for an engine run. The engine was started, and ran at idle power before being advanced to 2,500 rpm. The power was increased to 4,000 rpm and no anomalies were noted. The engine power was reduced to idle power, and the engine was shut down. The reason for the reported loss of engine power was not determined.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during initial climb for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09LA473
- Event ID
- 20090822X85140
- Case number
- ERA09LA473
- 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: 2d165bdab4e07128b0bbd4b5c6ff20d93a426a07db57802c0bf9400ca93674ed; retrieved 2026-09-15T12:49:48.836Z.