CEN20LA377 · Stinson 108-3
Stinson 108-3 · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure en route
From Woodruff Lake Airport (53W) to Woodruff Lake Airport (53W)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20LA377
- 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 108-3
- 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
- N909C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Woodruff Lake Airport (53W), Remus, MITo Woodruff Lake Airport (53W), Remus, MI
- Aircraft age
- About 73 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
- Powerplant system/component malfunction/failure
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had been flying for about 45 minutes when the airplane experienced a total loss of engine power. The pilot performed a forced landing onto a field. The airplane nosed over and sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and empennage. Postaccident examination of the engine revealed that the single generator drive gear for the ignition system had separated into several pieces. The drive gear shaft installation called for a castellated nut with a cotter pin to retain the drive gear, but the cotter pin had not been installed and allowed the nut to back off, which ceased ignition to the engine. The generator was installed by the pilot, who did not hold a mechanic certificate, during his overhaul of the engine. The pilot stated that he performed the overhaul of the engine and installation of the generator under the supervision of a mechanic with an airframe and powerplant ratings. No other mechanical anomalies with the engine were noted.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper installation of the generator drive gear, which resulted in a total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20LA377
- Event ID
- 20200901X22136
- Case number
- CEN20LA377
- 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, coordinates, cause areas. 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: 3a5bca24a04492df904f5dc7c2a2d8159505aaac11362c2d936a6e83f926a55e; retrieved 2026-09-16T12:58:20.157Z.