ERA15LA306 · Wright Daniel J Volksplane VP-1
Wright Daniel J Volksplane VP-1 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during takeoff
From Brooksville–Tampa Bay Regional Airport (BKV) to Brooksville–Tampa Bay Regional Airport (BKV)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15LA306
- 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
Wright Daniel J Volksplane VP-1
- Aircraft type
- Wright Daniel VOLKSPLANE VP-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
- N9288
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brooksville–Tampa Bay Regional Airport (BKV), Brooksville, FLTo Brooksville–Tampa Bay Regional Airport (BKV), Brooksville, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 5 years (built 2010)
- 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
- 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 (partial)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The sport pilot, who was also the builder of the single-seat, experimental, amateur-built airplane, stated that he had "some issues" during assembly of the experimental engine kit, but was finally able to achieve the desired engine rpm during static tests. Subsequently, during the airplane's takeoff roll on its first flight with the new engine, the pilot noted that the airplane was able to gain airspeed, but struggled to become airborne. The pilot stated that he should have aborted the takeoff at that point. The airplane reached a maximum altitude about 100 ft, the engine lost power, and the airplane descended into trees and was destroyed by a postimpact fire. The extent of the fire precluded detailed documentation of the engine and its associated systems; therefore, the reason for the loss of power could not be determined.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to abort the takeoff after determining that the engine was not producing adequate power. Contributing to the accident was the engine's inability to produce adequate power for reasons that could not be determined due to extensive postimpact fire damage.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15LA306
- Event ID
- 20150810X41830
- Case number
- ERA15LA306
- 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: 0e6f5b28d34dcc1f89c562e348d04cccb189772b9562ac96f93ec97a3770404c; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:38:38.992Z.