CEN14LA417 · Stinson 108 1 UNDESIGNAT
Stinson 108 1 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Sky Harbor Airport (DYT) to Surfside Seaplane Base (8Y4)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA417
- 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
Stinson 108 1 UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Stinson 108
- 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
- N9034K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sky Harbor Airport (DYT), Duluth, MNTo Surfside Seaplane Base (8Y4), Lino Lakes, MN
- Aircraft age
- About 67 years (built 1947)
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the private pilot, after about 30 minutes of uneventful cross-country flight in the float-equipped airplane and about 2,000 ft above ground level, the engine sputtered for about 10 seconds and then lost all power. The pilot initiated emergency procedures for a restart and located an off-airport landing site while in an emergency descent. The airplane touched down on its floats in a grassy field. Examination of the airplane revealed structural damage to the fuselage adjacent to the float attachment points.
No obvious anomalies were found with the engine or fuel system on scene. After the airplane wreckage was recovered, maintenance personnel were able to start and run the engine with an external fuel supply. The engine started and ran for about 30 seconds and then stopped. After the run attempt, the fuel gascolator and carburetor intake screen were removed and cleaned. No significant debris was found. After examining the remainder of the engine, the engine was started again, ran for about 1 minute, and stopped again. A replacement carburetor was then installed. The engine was started and ran normally with the replacement carburetor.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to an anomaly with the carburetor system that could not be determined during postaccident examination.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA417
- Event ID
- 20140811X50008
- Case number
- CEN14LA417
- 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: bf973284e431c0bc3b798d68c401d0cd5dfad0649824dd773991d9082edc8170; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:37:40.745Z.