ERA10LA301 · Hood John Sidney TANGO
Hood John Sidney TANGO · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From Williston Municipal Airport (X60) to Clearwater Air Park (CLW)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10LA301
- 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
Hood John Sidney TANGO
- Aircraft type
- Hood John Sidney TANGO
- 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
- N76HT
- Operator
- Dennis F. Funnemark · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Williston Municipal Airport (X60), Williston, FLTo Clearwater Air Park (CLW), Clearwater, 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 · 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 (partial)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot descended to 1,000 feet mean sea level and attempted to increase the engine power. The engine did not respond and the pilot realized that the airplane would not be able to make it to the closest airport. He elected to perform a forced landing on a road. An automobile pulled out on the road and the pilot had to extend the airplane's glide. The airplane collided with mangrove trees and came to rest off the side of the road.
A postaccident examination of the airframe, flight controls, and engine assembly revealed no evidence of a mechanical malfunction. The airplane was configured with one magneto installed on the left side of the engine and an experimental electronic ignition system installed on the right side. An electronic module was installed on the magneto pad and connected to two high-tension spark coils mounted on top of the engine, which fired the upper spark plugs. There were two wires from the module to each coil supplying the trigger voltage signal to fire the spark plugs. One of the wires to the right coil, firing cylinder Nos. 1 and 3, was not connected.
A wiring harness connected the module to the airframe electrical system and the spark coils. The harness was connected to the module with a "D" plug, which was held in place with two screws. The plug was found disconnected from the module and hanging loose. This likely resulted in the complete loss of power to the right ignition system, causing a partial loss of engine power as reported by the pilot.
Review of the airplane logbooks revealed the airplane had flown 25.7 hours since the last condition inspection. The airframe and powerplant mechanic who performed that inspection stated that he did not check the "D" plug during that condition inspection.
Probable cause
The improper inspection of the airplane ignition system during the last condition inspection by a mechanic, resulting in an ignition cable disconnecting and a partial loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10LA301
- Event ID
- 20100607X01621
- Case number
- ERA10LA301
- 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: 4aaa4b15dc4a3ee080aab1f89b92f801729d715fb956549977e52cf436f64260; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:22:16.919Z.