WPR10LA316 · McGlashan T-51 Mustang
McGlashan T-51 Mustang · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Pine Mountain Lake Airport (E45) to Columbia Airport (O22)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10LA316
- 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
McGlashan T-51 Mustang
- Aircraft type
- Mcglashan T-51
- 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
- N751RM
- Operator
- Richard L. McGlashan · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pine Mountain Lake Airport (E45), Groveland, CATo Columbia Airport (O22), Columbia, CA
- 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 downwind
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The experimental amateur-built airplane had been airborne for approximately 30 minutes on its inaugural flight when the engine stopped producing power. The pilot subsequently performed a forced landing to a field, and during the landing the main landing gear separated from the fuselage, causing the fuselage to wrinkle and bend. Postaccident examination of the engine's electronic ignition module revealed that it was partially melted. The electronic module had been mounted approximately 5 inches from the engine's exhaust pipe due to lack of clearance between the top of the engine and its cowling. The installation manual for the module states that the maximum ambient temperature for the electronic module is 175 degrees Fahrenheit.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power during approach due to thermal damage to the engine's electronic ignition module. Contributing to the accident was the builder’s placement of the ignition module near the engine’s exhaust.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10LA316
- Event ID
- 20100627X50454
- Case number
- WPR10LA316
- 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: 165aab25e815e260bf89fc4ee14903b82bac416013966d085abd040514558ae9; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:30:38.263Z.