ERA18LA241 · Diamond DA40 UNDESIGNAT
Diamond DA40 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Maury County Airport (MRC) to Maury County Airport (MRC)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18LA241
- 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
Diamond DA40 UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Diamond DA40
- 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
- N388MA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Maury County Airport (MRC), Mount Pleasant, TNTo Maury County Airport (MRC), Mount Pleasant, TN
- Aircraft age
- About 13 years (built 2005)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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 (total)
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot reported that, while on a downwind leg of the airport traffic pattern, he reduced the engine power to prepare for landing; however, the engine lost total power. The pilot then advanced the throttle in an unsuccessful attempt to regain power. He subsequently attempted an engine restart to no avail and, at that time, realized that the airplane would not be able to glide to the runway. The pilot performed a forced landing to a field about 1 mile short of the runway threshold, which resulted in substantial damage to the landing gear and empennage. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that sufficient fuel remained in the left fuel tank and that the fuel selector was found positioned to the left fuel tank; sufficient fuel also remained in the right fuel tank. Further examination of the engine, fuel system, and ignition system did not reveal any evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Although fuel unporting is possible with the amount of fuel that was available in the left tank, it was unlikely based on the airplane's attitude around the time of the loss of engine power. Thus, the reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination of the airplane did not reveal any evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18LA241
- Event ID
- 20180902X00011
- Case number
- ERA18LA241
- 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: 7d64b7bf007a9d727e819f8be8800ed50df18225b677e45a80331f8203e78470; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:11:05.576Z.