CEN12LA371 · Amen STAR LITE
Amen STAR LITE · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during takeoff
From San Geronimo Airpark (8T8) to San Geronimo Airpark (8T8)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12LA371
- 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
Amen STAR LITE
- Aircraft type
- Amen STAR LITE
- 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
- N319NP
- Operator
- Amen Nelson P
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Geronimo Airpark (8T8), San Antonio, TXTo San Geronimo Airpark (8T8), San Antonio, TX
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 (partial)
- 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 systems
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the airplane’s engine operated normally during the engine run-up and takeoff ground run. However, after takeoff, at an altitude of about 150 feet above ground level, the engine lost power. The pilot turned the airplane back toward the airport in an attempt to reach the runway. A hard landing was made in the grass alongside the runway. The landing gear collapsed, and the airplane continued to slide onto the runway before coming to rest. The airplane’s wings and fuselage were substantially damaged.
A postaccident examination revealed that pieces of a sealant coating that was applied to the inside of the fuel tank had dislodged. The pilot believed that the coating dislodged because the coating in that area (the curvature where the side and bottom of the fuel tank meet) had not properly cured after he applied it 6 years before the accident. Pieces of this coating were found inside the fuel pump, which likely prevented fuel flow to the engine.
Probable cause
The separation of the fuel tank sealant coating, which traveled into the fuel pump, blocked the fuel flow, and resulted in fuel starvation to the engine.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12LA371
- Event ID
- 20120615X41437
- Case number
- CEN12LA371
- 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: eccccb9ca245c5064df623ecccdd69dcd7bc81d77c4ba95645d62738de6589c6; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:31:31.461Z.