LAX98LA308 · Rockwell COMMANDER 114 COMMANDER
Rockwell COMMANDER 114 COMMANDER · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) on approach
From Watsonville Municipal Airport (WVI) to Castle Airport (MER)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98LA308
- 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
Rockwell COMMANDER 114 COMMANDER
- Aircraft type
- Rockwell COMMANDER 114
- 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
- N114AL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Watsonville Municipal Airport (WVI), Watsonville, CATo Castle Airport (MER)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern turn to base
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Ignition system, magneto › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The engine sputtered then quit as the pilot was initiating a turn to base. He landed hard on the runway and severed the right main landing gear. The aircraft continued forward on the runway, then impacted a runway light and veered off into a grassy area. An FAA inspector examined the engine and noted no external damage. The aircraft was equipped with a dual cased single-drive magneto and the maintenance records indicated that a 500-hour inspection had been performed on the magneto on June 13, 1998. The mechanic reported that he checked all the points for evidence of arcing and found none. He stated that he ran the magneto on a test bench and it ran normally. Postaccident examination of the magneto revealed that the right points did not open and the left points would close intermittently. It was further noted that the cam followers for both sides of the magneto were melted. Neither capacitor passed the insulation resistance test at 400 VDC. The magneto was test run with the original harness and capacitors attached. Both sides of the magneto generated sparks at 500 and 1,000 rpm. A 150-watt lamp was set up next to the magneto to simulate engine heat. The magneto was then run at a speed approximating cruise speed. After 5 minutes, the right magneto ceased to generate sparks. The left magneto generated sparks for the duration of the test. The pilot reported that he performed two magneto checks prior to takeoff, with no noted discrepancies.
Probable cause
An internal capacitor failure and melting of the point cam followers, which resulted in failure of both magnetos, and subsequent total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98LA308
- Event ID
- 20001211X11114
- Case number
- LAX98LA308
- 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: 0555eb8c37e56a741afcd6130d5cc391c2c50fa95e247d78e6ce30a1b18f79e5; retrieved 2026-09-22T16:39:39.652Z.