FTW97LA086 · Mahan STARDUSTER II STARDUSTER
Mahan STARDUSTER II STARDUSTER · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Comandante FAP German Arias Graziani Airport (ATA) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA086
- 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
Mahan STARDUSTER II STARDUSTER
- Aircraft type
- Mahan 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
- N45227
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Comandante FAP German Arias Graziani Airport (ATA)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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Throttle/power lever, cable › Failure, total
- Unknown › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a forced landing, following a loss of engine power, the pilot maneuvered the airplane to avoid powerlines and vehicles on a highway. The airplane struck a tree before coming to a stop in a pasture. The owner/pilot reported that the airplane, built by private individuals, was released to service in December 1996, and the total time on the day of the accident was 32 hours. The pilot/owner reported that a 'B' clamp 'loosened and allowed the throttle housing to slide freely. This in turn allowed the carb[uretor] to fall back to the idle position.' The throttle cable was examined and removed under the surveillance of the FAA inspector. After the removal, it a cable break was found, where the cable was swaged to the control rod at the cockpit end of the cable. The FAA inspector 'concluded that the power loss was due to failure of the engine throttle control cable.' The reason for the failure of the cable was not determined; however, the individual cable wires 'appear to have been twisted prior to breakage which would indicate improper handling or installation.'
Probable cause
improper maintenance by unknown person(s), which resulted in the failure of the throttle cable and a substantial loss of engine power. A factor relating to the accident was: the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA086
- Event ID
- 20001208X07290
- Case number
- FTW97LA086
- 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: investigation status. 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: e7001ec99e73f3672d1d7db27efe27ebfaf3f304f2b35d0436642eb85d28b91d; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:14:46.670Z.