Carib Air Cargo de Havilland DHC-6-200 accident
de Havilland DHC-6-200 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during takeoff
From Palm Beach County Park Airport (LNA) to Kissimmee Gateway Airport (ISM)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL99LA067
- 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
- 0
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
de Havilland DHC-6-200
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland DHC-6
- 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
- N838MA
- Operator
- Carib-Air Cargo
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palm Beach County Park Airport (LNA)To Kissimmee Gateway Airport (ISM), Kissimmee, FL
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Takeoff
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Lubricating system › Starvation
- Lubricating system, oil filler cap › Not secured
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Flaps, improper use of
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that prior to takeoff, he completed a preflight inspection of the airplane that included checking the engine oil quantity. The line personnel topped off the oil reservoirs, and reportedly secured the engine oil reservoir filler caps. Approximately two minutes into the flight, the right engine oil pressure warning light illuminated. The pilot informed Palm Beach Approach Control of the engine oil pressure problem, shut down the right engine, and returned to Lantana. As the flight approached runway 03, the pilot heard a radio transmission from another airplane taxiing for takeoff. As the pilot continued the approach, with full flaps extended, he elected to go-around 1500 feet from the approach end of the 3000-foot runway. The airplane collided with the ground during the go-around maneuver to runway 15. The wreckage examination also disclosed that the right cowling showed oil streaming back from behind the engine and onto the wing strut. Inspection of the oil filler cap revealed that it had not been properly installed.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to secure the engine oil filler cap during the preflight inspection that resulted the subsequent loss of engine power, and his in-flight decision to attempt a single engine go-around with full wing flaps extended.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL99LA067
- Event ID
- 20001205X00419
- Case number
- ATL99LA067
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: 7f60bba0d6af1ade23010e04323c63228e6f68d76fe4ee26a7419f6a4d2e2b5e; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:57:34.767Z.