ATL95FA036 · Cessna 414
Cessna 414 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Emanuel County Airport (SBO) to Columbia Metropolitan Airport (CAE)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL95FA036
- 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
- 4 · 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
- 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
Cessna 414
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 414
- 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
- N13SE
- Operator
- Merrill, Charles B. JR · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Emanuel County Airport (SBO), Swainsboro, GATo Columbia Metropolitan Airport (CAE), Columbia, SC
- 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 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 · climb to cruise
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE CLIMBING THROUGH 6300 FT, THE PILOT REPORTED THE COMPLETE LOSS OF POWER ON THE RIGHT ENGINE. APPROX 4 MIN LATER, AND AFTER THE PILOT HAD ESTABLISHED AN EMERGENCY DESCENT FOR A LANDING, HE REPORTED THAT THE LEFT ENGINE HAD ALSO LOST POWER. THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED A DRIVEWAY AND SKIDDED INTO A BUILDING. EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT THE RIGHT ENGINE FAILED DUE TO SHIFTING OF THE ENGINE CASE HALVES. REVIEW OF THE ENGINE MAINTENANCE RECORDS INDICATED THAT SEVERAL CYLINDERS HAD BEEN REPLACED IN RECENT MONTHS; THE CYLINDER THROUGH BOLTS ARE USED TO TORQUE THE ENGINE CASE. A REASON FOR THE LOSS OF POWER ON THE LEFT ENGINE WAS NOT DETERMINED.
Probable cause
THE LOSS OF POWER ON THE LEFT ENGINE FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS. A FACTOR WAS THE FAILURE OF THE RIGHT ENGINE DUE TO MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL'S FAILURE TO PROPERLY TORQUE THE CYLINDER THROUGH BOLTS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL95FA036
- Event ID
- 20001207X02812
- Case number
- ATL95FA036
- 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: 232238c649304310c98cea9dbf2c1b0efe8c58e1417b7f924bbd0a1b5f8496d3; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:53:24.356Z.