Skip to content

ATL82DA127

1982-05-09 · HERNDON, Virginia, United States · None · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed

Airport IAD

N969H has since been reassigned. It is now registered to a different aircraft (HARMON ROCKET LLC HARMON ROCKET II), which was not involved in this event.

Aircraft involved

Factual narrative

FOLLOWING AN ENGINE FAILURE, THE PILOT HAD A LIMITED CHOICE OF TERRAIN FOR LANDING. HE LANDED HARD AND SLID INTO TREES. A METALLURGICAL EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT THE SHAFT ON THE ENGINE OIL PUMP DRIVE GEAR, PN 538609, HAD FAILED FROM FATIGUE. EVIDENCE OF HEAVY WEAR OF THE SHAFT WAS FOUND WHICH COINCIDED WITH A FOREIGN METALLIC SMEAR (ALUMINUM) ON THE SURFACE OF THE OIL REVEALED NO CONTAMINATION. AN EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE LOG REVEALED THAT THE ENGINE HAD RECEIVED MAJOR REPAIR ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS, ONCE FOR A BROKEN PISTON. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1982_ATL82DA127.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (engine failure). All research papers