ERA10LA100 · Fpna LLC A-22 Valor
Costal Empire Flight Training Academy Fpna LLC A-22 Valor · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV) to Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10LA100
- 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
Fpna LLC A-22 Valor
- Aircraft type
- Fpna A-22
- 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
- N721FP
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV), Savannah, GATo Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV), Savannah, 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 · 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While maneuvering as part of a formation flight, the pilot noticed that the electronic instruments were dimming and that the oil pressure gauge indicated zero. About 10 seconds later, the engine seized and the pilot performed a forced landing on a dirt road. The airplane incurred substantial damage during landing when it veered into a ditch. A postaccident examination of the engine revealed that the No.1 cylinder's connecting rod was protruding through the top of the engine case. Upon removal of the engine cowling, the brass B-nut was found separated from the oil cooler fitting. There was no apparent damage to the threads on the inside of the nut and no damage on the outside of the fitting. Oil was present in the oil sump and on the oil dipstick.
The engine had a dry sump forced lubrication system. The oil pump extracts the oil from the oil tank via the oil cooler and forces it through the oil filter to the engine. According to notations found in the airplane's maintenance logbook, the engine's oil had been changed 1.6 flight hours prior to the accident. According to the owner, maintenance personnel did not touch the oil cooler or fittings during the oil change service. The engine manufacturer’s Service Instructions manual had a warning associated with servicing and purging of the oil system. The warning stated that maintenance personnel should carefully check all lubrication system connections, lines and clamps for leaks and security.
Probable cause
Maintenance personnel's inadequate inspection of the oil system's fittings during a routine oil servicing, which resulted in oil starvation due to a loose and/or detached oil line B-nut fitting that led to the engine seizing while in flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10LA100
- Event ID
- 20091228X94145
- Case number
- ERA10LA100
- 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, coordinates. 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: 3663cfc17e4f00a3e884363635f26dbbc30e9886828991f9885761d5ce8079ac; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:35:41.605Z.