ANC08LA063 · Shaffstall Kolb Firestar II
Shaffstall Kolb Firestar II · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Buffalo Creek Airport (4NC8) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC08LA063
- 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
- 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
Shaffstall Kolb Firestar II
- Aircraft type
- Shaffstall KOLB FIRESTAR
- 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
- N40737
- Operator
- Stephen M. Hendry · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Buffalo Creek Airport (4NC8), Concord, NCTo 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- Loss of engine power (total)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
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 originally built and marketed as a kit built, two seat ultralight aircraft with a tubular frame and fabric-covered wings, but it was registered to the builder in 1995 as an airplane, and an "N" number was issued. The FAA's airplane registry still has the builder listed as owner, with a sale reported to another party, but not to the pilot. The pilot told an FAA inspector that he bought the airplane as a "no regulation" aircraft on E Bay. He assembled the airplane, installed a single seat, and rebuilt the Rotax engine about 30 hours before the accident. The airplane did not have a current registration, nor an airworthiness certificate. As part of the pilot's preflight before the accident flight, he drained and refilled the fuel tank. He then ran the engine, on the ground, for about 30 minutes. He then departed for one turn around the airport traffic pattern, and landed. He rechecked the engine and decided to depart for his intended destination. The pilot said that he just turned out from the local traffic pattern about 700 feet above the ground when the engine lost power. He tried to turn back toward the airport, but the airplane's glide capabilities were poor. He attempted to land on a nearby road, but the airplane descended in a steep, nose-down attitude, and collided with the ground in the front yard of a residence. FAA personnel, nor the pilot determined why the engine lost power.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for an undetermined reason, which resulted in a forced landing and collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC08LA063
- Event ID
- 20080508X00633
- Case number
- ANC08LA063
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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, coordinates. 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: 7564e133c45ae6ae963b634b1e57a84e6f4ddd0b1e002eb27a9240daf60b74e9; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:38:09.543Z.