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Atlas / NTSB / CEN10LA242

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event CEN10LA242

2010-05-09 Loveland, Colorado, United States Airport · KFNL None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

A loss of engine power due to a malfunction of the fuel controller resulting in a compressor stall.

Factual narrative

On May 9, 2010, approximately 1000 mountain daylight time, a Jorritsma Berkut, N3255U, was substantially damaged during a forced landing following a total loss of engine power during initial takeoff . The private pilot, the sole occupant, was not injured. The airplane was owned and operated by the pilot. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and no flight plan was filed for the Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight. The local flight was departing the Fort Collins-Loveland Municipal Airport (KFNL), Loveland, Colorado at the time of the accident. According to a statement provided by the pilot, shortly after departing KFNL and climbing through 7,500 feet mean seal level, the pilot made a power reduction. A loud bang was heard and vibrations were felt by the pilot. The pilot scanned the engine instruments and determined that the engine was "rolling back" and losing power. The pilot attempted to return to the airport, but impacted terrain short of the runway. The airplane's landing gear collapsed during the forced landing, and substantial damage was sustained to the fuselage and both wings. The engine was equipped with an experimental engine. The Jorritsma T58-8F was a turbojet engine based on General Electric T58-GE-8F turboshaft design. The engine's compressor section has variable stators which are actuated by the fuel controller. An examination of the engine by the owner/manufacturer revealed that a malfunction of the fuel controller resulted in conditions conducive for compressor stalls. The turbojet airplane was on initial takeoff when the pilot began a power reduction on the throttle. A loud bang was heard and vibrations were felt by the pilot. The engine began to lose power and the pilot attempted to land the airplane at the airport, but landed short resulting in substantial damage to the fuselage and wings. An examination of the experimental engine by the owner/manufacturer revealed a malfunction of the fuel controller which resulted in a compressor stall and subsequent loss of engine power. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • C Aircraft-Aircraft power plant-Engine fuel and control-Fuel controlling system-Malfunction - C

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2010_CEN10LA242.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (stall). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗