LAX96LA110 · Stolp STARDUSTER II STARDUSTER
Stolp STARDUSTER II STARDUSTER · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Kahului International Airport (OGG) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX96LA110
- 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
- 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
Stolp STARDUSTER II STARDUSTER
- Aircraft type
- Stolp STARDUSTER
- 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
- N1457
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kahului International Airport (OGG)To not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Ignition system, magneto grounding lead (p-lead) › Disconnected
- Ignition system, magneto › Contamination
- Pilot in command › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane had not been flown recently, and the engine made a popping noise during run-up. The pilot accepted a midfield intersection departure from the 6,995-foot-long runway. At about the time the airplane rotated for takeoff, the engine started to make the popping noise again. At about 75 feet above the ground, the engine quit running. The airplane had flown past the departure end of the runway, and the pilot attempted to return to the airport. However, the airplane crash landed in a sugar cane field before reaching the runway. The last previous annual inspection had been completed on 2/14/93. In November 1995, an A&P mechanic made another inspection. The mechanic indicated the airplane was in need of work and the engine had low compression. He did not return the airplane to service and released it back to the pilot/previous owner. The pilot told the mechanic he would complete the repairs himself. Examination of the left magneto revealed the internal 'P' lead was detached from its connector; and the left magneto's internal mechanism was dirty, contaminated with engine oil, and displayed evidence of internal electrical arcing. According to the engine manufacturer, this could account for the popping noise. No record was found that the pilot possessed a current airman medical certificate or biennial flight review.
Probable cause
a faulty engine magneto, and decision by the pilot-in-command to operate the airplane with known deficiencies. A factor relating to the accident was: the airplane was overdue for an annual inspection.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX96LA110
- Event ID
- 20001208X05282
- Case number
- LAX96LA110
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1996-02-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e382e39d285854c3223f42e72e107cfadd592446478171684c33814e6345a05c; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:54:21.170Z.