ERA26LA169 · Eric Vargosko SW-51
Eric Vargosko SW-51 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA26LA169
- 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
- Ongoing
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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
Eric Vargosko SW-51
- Aircraft type
- Eric Vargosko SW-51
- 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
- N551EV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 2 years (built 2024)
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On April 10, 2026, about 1732 eastern daylight time, an experimental amateur built SW-51 airplane, N551EV, sustained minor damage when it was involved in an accident near Iron Station, North Carolina. The front seat pilot sustained minor injuries, and the back seat pilot sustained serious injuries. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight. The front seat pilot and owner reported that a new propeller had been installed on the airplane two days before the accident flight. The morning of the accident flight he was informed by the back seat pilot that flight testing with the new propeller had been accomplished. That afternoon they departed Gastonia Municipal Airport (AKH), Gastonia, North Carolina for a flight in the local area before landing at Lincoln County Regional Airport (IPJ), Lincolnton, North Carolina for fuel. He reported that they fully fueled the airplane and upon lifting off he noticed the ball in the slip/skid indicator was moving right and left. He informed the back seat pilot who took control of the airplane. The back seat pilot landed in an open field about 0.5 nautical miles from the departure end of runway 23 at IPJ. The airplane was retained for further examination.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA26LA169
- Event ID
- 20260414202819
- Case number
- ERA26LA169
- 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: d38a0965682e2cbd286a4c10383a75664734e022c7f738fa6645830962f930fe; retrieved 2026-09-16T21:13:58.390Z.