DEN03FA023 · Rockwell Commander 114
Rockwell Commander 114 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Addison Airport (ADS) to Bill & Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field (LIT)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN03FA023
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
- 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
- N314M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Addison Airport (ADS), Dallas, TXTo Bill & Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field (LIT), Little Rock, AR
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Airframe, component or system 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 › Failure, total
- Unknown › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was on an instrument flight plan at night, with a destination of Little Rock, Arkansas. The pilot reported a loss of engine power, and he diverted into Hot Springs, Arkansas. The airplane impacted a brick house, approximately 6,000 feet short of the runway. The airplane engine ignition system's single-drive dual-magneto exhibited evidence of melted plastic on its four-lobe breaker cam. The cam itself exhibited "bluing" discoloration and was dry of lubrication. The internal damage to the magneto suggested that the breaker cam's shaft had been forcibly pushed into the magneto. Evaluation of the magneto housing revealed a 7/8-inch gouge, which matched the dimension of its hold-down clamp. The magneto had been removed during the airplane's last annual inspection for a normal maintenance inspection. The airplane had flown approximately 148 hours since its annual inspection.
Probable cause
the loss of engine power due to the failure of the engine ignition system's single-drive dual-magneto, and the magneto's improper installation by unknown maintenance personnel. Contributing factors were the improper installation of the magneto by unknown maintenance personnel, the lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing, and the dark night light condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN03FA023
- Event ID
- 20021218X05618
- Case number
- DEN03FA023
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2002-12-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 82ec24f795d15e93c4e7e5b41b5c3c85b0622ab414c5ee46cb090747ba252d36; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:35:09.053Z.