WPR16LA088 · Thomas D. Parkes Lancair ES
Thomas D. Parkes Lancair ES · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during initial climb
From Prescott Regional Airport - Ernest A. Love Field (PRC) to Prescott Regional Airport - Ernest A. Love Field (PRC)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR16LA088
- 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
Thomas D. Parkes Lancair ES
- Aircraft type
- Thomas D Parkes LANCAIR ES
- 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
- N44AZ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Prescott Regional Airport - Ernest A. Love Field (PRC), Prescott, AZTo Prescott Regional Airport - Ernest A. Love Field (PRC), Prescott, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 13 years (built 2003)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airline transport pilot was departing in the experimental, amateur-built airplane. During the initial climb, the engine experienced a partial loss of power. The pilot performed a precautionary landing on a taxiway, during which the airplane departed the paved surface and the nose landing gear collapsed.
Postaccident examination of the engine turbocharger revealed reddish-white discoloration of the turbine wheel, which suggested excessive engine exhaust gas temperature. Likewise, discoloration observed on the turbine end shaft journal was consistent with high temperature. The combination of high exhaust temperature and the rotational speed of the turbine wheel likely caused the blade material to creep and the wheel diameter to increase until the blade tips rubbed against the turbine housing. This eventually caused blade tip failures, which resulted in a rotating imbalance. It is likely that the combination of wheel rubbing and imbalance and caused the turbocharger to slow or stop, which in turn resulted in the loss of engine power. The reason for the excessive engine temperature could not be determined during the investigation based on the available information.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power due to an over-temperature event, which thermally damaged the blade tips of the turbocharger wheel and resulted in a slowing or stoppage in the rotation of the turbocharger.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR16LA088
- Event ID
- 20160328X81335
- Case number
- WPR16LA088
- 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, coordinates. 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: bdab5ac228253b5c915cb895d18b091b46b6a4f87e6e2aa956e49569bc7be024; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:14:55.640Z.