WPR14FA348 · Cliff STARDUSTER II SA300
Cliff STARDUSTER II SA300 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) while maneuvering
From Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV) to Swansboro Country Airport (01CL)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14FA348
- 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
Cliff STARDUSTER II SA300
- Aircraft type
- Cliff STARDUSTER II SA300
- 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
- N411TM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV), San Jose, CATo Swansboro Country Airport (01CL), Placerville, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 38 years (built 1976)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 (partial)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While on approach for landing, the private pilot initiated a go-around on short final due to gusty crosswind conditions. During the climbout, the pilot reported that the airplane experienced a partial loss of engine power. The airplane subsequently collided with terrain, seriously injuring the pilot and fatally injuring the passenger. Postaccident examination of the engine and airframe revealed no evidence of any preexisting mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Blood samples from the pilot tested positive for methamphetamine and its active metabolite, amphetamine. The methamphetamine was found at high levels, indicative of abuse. It is likely that the pilot was impaired by the psychoactive effects of illicit methamphetamine use at the time of the accident, which impaired his ability to maintain control of the airplane during the go-around attempt.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane during a go-around in gusting wind conditions following a partial loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined, because postaccident examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's impairment due to his recent use of methamphetamine.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14FA348
- Event ID
- 20140816X62709
- Case number
- WPR14FA348
- 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 2014-08-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f76a13af8a056a6268c4a10c5d6650871e473ad70b18c40ef82d5d54ed982a57; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:24:00.340Z.