ERA09LA510 · SOCATA TB 9 TAMPI
SOCATA TB 9 TAMPI · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure en route
From Heart of Georgia Regional Airport (EZM) to Griffin Spalding County Airport (6A2)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09LA510
- 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
SOCATA TB 9 TAMPI
- Aircraft type
- Socata TB-9
- 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
- N135ER
- Operator
- Warren R W JR Dba
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Heart of Georgia Regional Airport (EZM), Eastman, GATo Griffin Spalding County Airport (6A2), Griffin, 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
- 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
- Powerplant system/component malfunction/failure
- 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 › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After takeoff the flight proceeded toward the destination airport. While in a descent between 7,000 and 6,500 feet msl, the engine began to vibrate and shake. The pilot continued toward the destination airport and reduced power to 2,000 rpm, but the vibrating/shaking continued. The pilot slowly reduced the power to idle, and after recognizing that he would be unable to land at the airport, he maneuvered the airplane for a forced landing in a field. He realized that the flight was too high to land in the first field, and he maneuvered the airplane toward a second field. He secured the engine about 100 feet above ground level (agl), and lowered full flaps. While descending through 20 feet agl, the airplane collided with the tops of pine trees. The airplane then impacted the ground and came to rest upright. Examination of the engine revealed the exhaust valve of the No. 3 cylinder was missing and not recovered. The top of the No. 3 piston exhibited heavy impact damage associated with the broken exhaust valve. The No. 3 cylinder had accumulated approximately 1,918 hours since overhaul at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The failure of the No. 3 cylinder exhaust valve for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09LA510
- Event ID
- 20090909X54637
- Case number
- ERA09LA510
- 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: 95e5768c1f90fa0de7be6fc1efe315b90d192f4ad90c2b538e6647f3a3a6b410; retrieved 2026-09-15T12:56:35.360Z.