WPR14FA243 · Dittenber Thomas J AURIGA
Dittenber Thomas J AURIGA · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV) to Echo Bay Airport (0L9)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14FA243
- 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
- 2 · 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
Dittenber Thomas J AURIGA
- Aircraft type
- Dittenber Thomas AURIGA
- 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
- N55GM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV), Minden, NVTo Echo Bay Airport (0L9), Echo Bay, NV
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 1999)
- 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 final
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
At the end of a personal cross-country flight, the private pilot was attempting to land at night on a dark unlit runway. A witness reported that the airplane made a low pass to the east of the airport and then reversed course to presumably land on runway 24. The witness lost site of the airplane and, shortly thereafter, observed a column of smoke.
The airplane impacted terrain 50 ft lower than the runway surface, 200 yards northeast of the runway threshold, in a steep nose-down attitude. The airplane was consumed by the postimpact fire. Postaccident examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of a mechanical malfunction or failure that would have precluded normal operation. It is likely that, while maneuvering in the dark night conditions with no ground reference or runway lighting, the pilot failed to maintain airplane control.
Toxicological testing detected methamphetamine in the pilot's tissue specimens, and the level in his liver suggested high dose use, which can cause impairment. The tests also detected tramadol, which may be sedating and is associated with an increased risk of seizure, particularly in the first days and weeks after beginning treatment or with very high doses. However, without a blood level, it could not be determined whether or not the pilot's use of tramadol or methamphetamine contributed to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airplane control while maneuvering for landing to an unlit runway in dark night conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14FA243
- Event ID
- 20140613X25748
- Case number
- WPR14FA243
- 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 2014-06-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b97fa1335175b9168b796d273db79bff0304d789119ad84c4735ec046d3bf948; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:19:32.476Z.