CEN15LA326 · Eagle Aircraft Co EAGLE DW 1
Eagle Aircraft Co EAGLE DW 1 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) on approach
From Hector Municipal Airport (1D6) to Hector Municipal Airport (1D6)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15LA326
- 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
Eagle Aircraft Co EAGLE DW 1
- Aircraft type
- Eagle DW-1
- 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
- N8806B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hector Municipal Airport (1D6), Hector, MNTo Hector Municipal Airport (1D6), Hector, MN
- Aircraft age
- About 34 years (built 1981)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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)
- 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
The pilot reported that new spray booms had been installed on the airplane and that he was returning to the airport after performing an aerial application test flight. During final approach for landing, the pilot noticed that the airplane was going to be short of the intended landing point, so he advanced the engine throttle to reestablish a proper glidepath. The engine did not respond as expected, so the pilot continued to advance the throttle; however, the engine still did not respond as expected. The pilot realized that the airplane was not going to reach the runway, so he applied maximum throttle, which resulted in the engine surging. He then increased the angle-of-attack in an attempt to gain maximum lift. However, the airplane's descent rate increased, and the spray booms subsequently contacted the bean field. The airplane then impacted the bean field, bounced, nosed over, and came to rest inverted. Postaccident examination of the engine did not reveal any mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have caused the intermittent partial power loss.
Probable cause
The intermittent partial loss of engine power, which resulted in a lower-than-expected approach glidepath and impact with terrain short of the runway. The reason for the intermittent partial loss of engine power could not be determined because postaccident examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15LA326
- Event ID
- 20150729X61149
- Case number
- CEN15LA326
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2015-07-29.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 50832cabecef199ddfa8c2bb62887213182ba76e0331470709ce41452204a589; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:35:50.329Z.