CEN14CA275 · Unknown BUCCANEER SX
Unknown BUCCANEER SX · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Wagoner, OK to Wagoner, OK
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14CA275
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Unknown BUCCANEER SX
- 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
- UNREG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wagoner, OKTo Wagoner, OK
- Aircraft age
- About 24 years (built 1990)
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 control in flight
- 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
On May 28, 2014, at 2027 central standard time, an unregistered experimental amateur-built Buccaneer SX, impacted terrain after a loss of engine power and aerodynamic stall during takeoff phase of a touch-and-go landing at Hefner-Easley Airport, Wagoner (H68), Oklahoma, when the engine lost engine power due to fuel exhaustion/starvation. The airplane received substantial damage to the fuselage. The uncertificated pilot sustained serious injuries. The airplane was had been owned and operated by the pilot for approximately two years. The local flight originated from H68 about 1945.
According to a Federal Aviation Administration inspector, the airplane, powered by a Rotax (serial number 6025420) engine, was about 100 feet above the ground after takeoff when the engine quit due to fuel depletion. The pilot estimated that there was about 8 gallons of fuel on board and stated that the fuel gauge was inoperative. The Hobbs meter indicated 1,972 hours, and the pilot thought that the meter was inoperative. The pilot stated the he did not know his total flight time in the accident airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control following a loss of engine power during takeoff. Contributing was the pilot's inadequate fuel management that led to fuel starvation/exhaustion and the loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14CA275
- Event ID
- 20140604X32307
- Case number
- CEN14CA275
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2014-05-29.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 06186198b64636883ae0b9554c4f84067f6736b20994da6dfa8e07c81e06673c; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:44:38.484Z.