WPR10LA432 · Stinson JR. S
Stinson JR. S · Accident: electrical system malfunction/failure en route
From Harvey Field (S43) to Harvey Field (S43)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10LA432
- 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
Stinson JR. S
- Aircraft type
- Stinson JR
- 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
- N12164
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Harvey Field (S43), Snohomish, WATo Harvey Field (S43), Snohomish, 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Electrical system malfunction/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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, after cruising for about 30 minutes, the engine suddenly lost all power. During the forced landing in an open field, the airplane impacted a fence and then the ground. An examination of the airplane revealed that the engine’s magneto switch had failed. The switch was original equipment in the airplane, which was manufactured 79 years prior to the accident. The pilot reported no known maintenance history or malfunction of the magneto switch prior to the accident.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during cruise flight, which resulted from a magneto switch failure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10LA432
- Event ID
- 20100828X81852
- Case number
- WPR10LA432
- 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: d44b57c241bb2ad4548924b0f7175b363126e6641ccd2adb1ec75fb82838f8dd; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:59:48.229Z.