CEN13LA433 · Clayton Gerald H GLASTAR GS-1
Clayton Gerald H GLASTAR GS-1 · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure on approach
From Columbus Municipal Airport (BAK) to Columbus Municipal Airport (BAK)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13LA433
- 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
- 1 · 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
Clayton Gerald H GLASTAR GS-1
- Aircraft type
- Clayton Gerald GLASTAR GS-1
- 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
- N513GC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Columbus Municipal Airport (BAK), Columbus, INTo Columbus Municipal Airport (BAK), Columbus, IN
- Aircraft age
- About 7 years (built 2006)
- 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
- Powerplant system/component 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Aircraft › Aircraft propeller/rotor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Family members and friends reported that, 2 years before the accident, the experimental, amateur-built airplane had experienced a serious in-flight engine problem. Since that time, the pilot had been repairing the engine and propeller system, and the accident flight was the airplane's first flight following the reported engine problem.
The pilot-rated passenger reported that, just after departing for a short local flight and turning the airplane to enter the downwind leg of the airport traffic pattern, the pilot informed him that there was a problem and that they needed to return to the airport. He added that the pilot began working "frantically on an electric switch for the propeller" while the engine was "screaming" but that the airplane continued descending. The airplane struck a tree and then impacted a house. An explosion and a postimpact fire immediately ensued, which consumed most of the airplane and the house. The pilot and passenger were able to exit the burning wreckage without assistance.
An examination of the engine clutch and gear reduction module found some metal contamination and a nonstandard displacement of the sprag clutch elements, and these issues likely resulted in clutch slippage, which can lead to the uncommanded movement of the propeller blades. The propeller blades were observed to be in about 5 degrees of reverse pitch, which would result in a substantial loss of glide capability.
Probable cause
Slippage in the engine clutch and gear reduction module and a resultant uncommanded movement of the propeller blades into reverse thrust.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13LA433
- Event ID
- 20130725X40602
- Case number
- CEN13LA433
- 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: 994ffe81933355e15d08a9869d179b3c5f1ea7a1a6a88e7bdb1f0af152781e38; retrieved 2026-09-14T16:01:15.662Z.