WPR09LA458 · Cassutt III M
Cassutt III M · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Reno-Stead Airport (RTS) to Reno-Stead Airport (RTS)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09LA458
- 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
Cassutt III M
- Aircraft type
- Cassutt III
- 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
- C-FDXO
- Operator
- Adrian Cooper
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reno-Stead Airport (RTS), Reno, NVTo Reno-Stead Airport (RTS), Reno, NV
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern base
- 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 › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was involved in a race and observed the engine begin to overheat. He elected to perform a precautionary landing and adjoined the traffic pattern of the nearby airport. While on the base leg to the runway, the engine stopped producing power and the airplane began to rapidly loose altitude. The airplane landed hard about 50 yards from the approach end of the runway, resulting in substantial damage to the airframe's tubular steel structure. A portion of a connecting rod was located within the debris surrounding the wreckage. An examination of the engine revealed a hole in the crankcase above the Nos. 1 and 2 cylinders. The connecting rod for the No. 2 cylinder was fractured and separated below the piston wrist pin; the piston end rotated freely and the crankshaft end was fractured. The connecting rod pieces exhibited blue discoloration and the fracture surfaces exhibited mechanical peen damage. The crankshaft journal for the cylinder No. 2 connecting rod exhibited a blue discoloration, as did the camshaft journal. The No. 2 connecting rod bearings showed a similar blue discoloration. The oil screen contained magnetic metallic debris.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to failure of the No. 2 connecting rod as a result of operation of the engine at excessive temperatures.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09LA458
- Event ID
- 20090919X34403
- Case number
- WPR09LA458
- 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: 3fa9148e32fc069620b54fec1296ad1dae2e690d42da8a623e242d6cc33ba642; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:19:41.256Z.