ERA18CA035 · Driggers Quillan E TITAN TORNADO UNDESIGNAT
Driggers Quillan E TITAN TORNADO UNDESIGNAT · Accident: fuel contamination during initial climb
From Woods Farm Airstrip (VA50) to Woods Farm Airstrip (VA50)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18CA035
- 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
Driggers Quillan E TITAN TORNADO UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Driggers Quillan TITAN TORNADO
- 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
- N50F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Woods Farm Airstrip (VA50), Mechanicsville, VATo Woods Farm Airstrip (VA50), Mechanicsville, VA
- Aircraft age
- About 18 years (built 1999)
- 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
- Fuel contamination
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot/owner reported that the engine lost partial power after takeoff and that he then conducted a forced landing to a field. The airplane nosed over during the landing, which resulted in substantial damage to the fuselage and vertical stabilizer.
The pilot reported that he subsequently disassembled and examined the airplane and that he found water in the fuel tank, which explained the partial loss of engine power. The pilot's failure to conduct an adequate preflight inspection and to detect water in the fuel system before takeoff led to the partial loss of engine power.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate preflight inspection and failure to detect water contamination in the fuel system, which resulted in a partial loss of engine power on takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18CA035
- Event ID
- 20171130X10310
- Case number
- ERA18CA035
- 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: 0db7212e3d414058095ad701c4ad856a292747a40e264f22bc05fd955f7ff88d; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:03:02.909Z.