WPR10FA387 · PZL Mielec M18 UNDESIGNAT
PZL Mielec M18 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during takeoff
From Sanborn Airport (38CN) to Sanborn Airport (38CN)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10FA387
- 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
PZL Mielec M18 UNDESIGNAT Narrative disagrees
- Aircraft type
- PZL Mielec M18
- 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
- N70461
- Operator
- Martin's Dusters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sanborn Airport (38CN), Meridian, CATo Sanborn Airport (38CN), Meridian, CA
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 turboshaft-powered aerial application airplane had just departed the airstrip when the pilot/owner heard a loud "crack," and the engine stopped developing power. He executed a forced landing in a water-filled rice paddy adjacent to the airstrip. After touchdown, the airplane nosed over onto its back. The non-U.S. designed airplane was originally manufactured and delivered with a reciprocating engine. About 18 years before the accident, that engine was replaced with a U.S. military turboshaft engine via a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) field approval. About 15 years after the engine change, and 3 years before the accident, the FAA mandated that piston-to-turbine engine conversions required the use of either an amended Type Certificate or a Supplemental Type Certificate, and that field approvals were no longer appropriate. Detailed examination of the engine revealed that most of the power turbine blades were severely damaged or missing. Material analysis of the turbine components revealed that the first stage turbine blades failed due to short-term exposure to excessively high temperatures and that other turbine blades failed due to impact damage from the thermally-failed first stage blades. The combustor was equipped with multiple fuel vaporizers, nearly all of which exhibited significant long-term thermal damage. None of the vaporizers were within the operable damage limits specified by the maintenance guidance. The damaged fuel vaporizers altered the combustor exit temperature profiles, which precipitated the first stage turbine blade failures. Maintenance records indicated that the 600-hour inspection interval of the engine hot section had been exceeded at least twice in the 14 years preceding the accident, and that, at the time of the accident, the engine had exceeded the hot section overhaul interval by about 300 hours. In-service records for the failed components could not be located. Although they did not contribute to the accident, multiple irregularities with the airplane's maintenance documentation were discovered during the investigation.
Probable cause
Long-term deterioration of multiple engine fuel vaporizers that led to material failure of multiple turbine blades, which resulted in a complete loss of engine power. Contributing to the accident were the exceedance of specified engine inspection intervals and the unsuitable forced landing location.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10FA387
- Event ID
- 20100806X00925
- Case number
- WPR10FA387
- 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: 3e4c2cc3168cc77dfbda0606ac68e5f505129a30f0e4bb47fa5cce27eea0c8d4; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:48:06.414Z.