WPR10LA069 · Mahre Starduster SA300
Mahre Starduster SA300 · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Yakima Air Terminal McAllister Field (YKM) to Yakima Air Terminal McAllister Field (YKM)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10LA069
- 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
Mahre Starduster SA300
- Aircraft type
- Mahre STARDUSTER SA300
- 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
- N480DM
- Operator
- David Mahre
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Yakima Air Terminal McAllister Field (YKM), Yakima, WATo Yakima Air Terminal McAllister Field (YKM), Yakima, WA
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was conducting a low-level, high-speed, pass over a remote control airplane airstrip. He stated that during the pass he pulled up and rolled the airplane. About halfway through the roll he lost sight of the horizon and stated that he "knew I was in trouble." The airplane impacted the ground shortly thereafter. Spectators at the airstrip reported that the pilot flew from southeast to northwest, and performed a fly-by approximately 20 to 30 feet above ground level. At the end of the airstrip, the airplane increased in altitude to about 100 feet and then entered a roll. No mechanical malfunctions were noted with the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain aircraft control during a low-altitude maneuver.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10LA069
- Event ID
- 20091130X93208
- Case number
- WPR10LA069
- 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. 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: 38ab772e08557bd5bca575a27f753b55105f4ae50ed23d714928e0de6be00c6d; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:32:36.906Z.