CEN17LA079 · Quicksilver GT-400 R503
Quicksilver GT-400 R503 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From Kitty Hawk Flying Field (TS67) to Kitty Hawk Flying Field (TS67)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17LA079
- 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
Quicksilver GT-400 R503
- Aircraft type
- Quicksilver GT-400
- 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
- N415HC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kitty Hawk Flying Field (TS67), Schertz, TXTo Kitty Hawk Flying Field (TS67), Schertz, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 11 years (built 2006)
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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)
- 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
- Wire
- 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 sport pilot reported that, about 15 minutes into the pleasure flight, the engine began "sputtering" and losing power. The pilot attempted to correct the problem by adjusting the throttle and applying the engine primer without success. The pilot then selected a field for a forced landing, during which the right main landing gear struck a power line. The airplane then flipped over and subsequently impacted a carport rooftop.
Examination of the engine revealed that one of the four spark plugs was loose in the cylinder, which led to a loss of compression and partial loss of engine power. The pilot's safety recommendation stated, "closer inspection of checking spark plugs before flight."
Probable cause
The partial loss of engine power due to a loose spark plug. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's improper preflight inspection of the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17LA079
- Event ID
- 20170117X42903
- Case number
- CEN17LA079
- 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: 565cbf1e0a66361ff1d8d546eeb9fe78f481db6d7f080f7b4615547285522384; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:57:24.044Z.