ERA14LA360 · Ryan Aeronautical ST3KR
Ryan Aeronautical ST3KR · Accident: loss of engine power (total) while maneuvering
From Cobb County International Airport-McCollum Field (RYY) to Panther Creek Airport (17GA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14LA360
- 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
Ryan Aeronautical ST3KR
- Aircraft type
- Ryan Aeronautical ST3
- 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
- N59418
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cobb County International Airport-McCollum Field (RYY), Atlanta, GATo Panther Creek Airport (17GA), Newnan, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 72 years (built 1942)
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A review of the airplane's maintenance records revealed that the accident flight was the airplane's first flight following an annual inspection. The private pilot and passenger departed on the personal flight and flew about 35 nautical miles to a private airstrip. A witness reported seeing the airplane conduct a low pass over the runway and then enter a climb. As the airplane climbed through about 200 ft above ground level, the engine experienced a sudden loss of power, and the airplane subsequently descended into trees. Video footage from the witness's cell phone corroborated his statement.
Postaccident examination revealed that the engine turned freely by hand when the propeller was rotated, and compression was established on the Nos. 1, 4, and 5 cylinders. No compression was established on the Nos. 2 and 3 cylinders. The No. 3 cylinder was impact-damaged. Examination of the No. 2 cylinder revealed an improperly adjusted intake valve set screw, which prevented the intake valve from closing completely. The No. 2 cylinder set screw was readjusted, and the intake valve subsequently closed normally, and compression was established. However, if the set screw had been set improperly before the flight, the engine problem should have been present throughout the flight rather than developing later in the flight; therefore, the effect of the improperly set screw on the engine performance could not be determined.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14LA360
- Event ID
- 20140726X91719
- Case number
- ERA14LA360
- 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: c5b79e8cbd385ee580471fedeb75aed6491dba3c7a9f4ed94f0e1f8839a0d53d; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:00:04.360Z.