WPR14LA327 · David L Thompson CHALLENGER II
David L Thompson CHALLENGER II · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Yuma International Airport / Marine Corps Air Station Yuma (NYL) to Gillespie Field (SEE)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14LA327
- 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
David L Thompson CHALLENGER II
- Aircraft type
- David L Thompson CHALLENGER
- 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
- N518DT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Yuma International Airport / Marine Corps Air Station Yuma (NYL), Yuma, AZTo Gillespie Field (SEE), SAN DIEGO/EL CAJON, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 2 years (built 2012)
- 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
- Loss of engine power (total)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot departed on a cross-country flight and climbed to cruise altitude when the engine suddenly experienced a total loss of power. The pilot attempted to restart the engine, but was unsuccessful. During the forced landing approach, at an altitude about 20 ft above ground level, the airplane encountered a wind gust, impacted the ground hard, and nosed over.
The 2-cylinder, turbocharged engine was equipped with an electronic engine control unit (ECU) that controlled the ignition and fuel injection systems. While performing the engine prestart sequence during the wreckage examination, the No. 1 electrical system indicated an ignition fault, the source of which could not be determined; the No. 2 electrical system would not activate properly. Several attempts to start the engine were unsuccessful; the engine would stumble, backfire, produce black exhaust, and stop. Examination of the spark plugs revealed that only one plug was firing in each cylinder. The ECU did not contain non-volatile memory, and it could not be determined whether the ECU was functioning properly during the accident flight. Further, examination of the electrical system was not possible due to the damage sustained during the accident; therefore, the reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during cruise for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s loss of control during the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14LA327
- Event ID
- 20140805X52809
- Case number
- WPR14LA327
- 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: 1005fad6eccdc1761046c2259deafe928fa9004d2636de5d5108250c6b41abe2; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:36:12.895Z.