ATL97LA012 · Douglas C-47
Flamenco Airways Douglas C-47 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Fernando Luis Ribas Dominicci Airport (SIG) to Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL97LA012
- 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
- 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
Douglas C-47
- Aircraft type
- Douglas C-47
- 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
- N37AP
- Operator
- Flamenco Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fernando Luis Ribas Dominicci Airport (SIG), San Juan, PRTo Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU), PR
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Engine assembly, cylinder › Cracked
- Propeller system/accessories, feathering system › Malfunction
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Dorado, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
After takeoff from runway 9, a climbing left turn was made. At about 1,000 feet, the #2 (right) engine backfired, emitted flames, & lost power. The captain instructed the copilot to feather the #2 propeller, which the copilot initiated with the feathering button. When the captain requested gear & flap extension, the copilot released the feathering button which did not remain engaged, contrary to system design. The airplane had arrived on a left downwind abeam the landing area at 500 feet & 95 to 100 kts. The captain turned toward the runway, then he ordered the gear & flaps to be retracted & initiated a go-around by increasing the left throttle without increasing propeller speed. A right turn was then made, & the airplane eventually crashed about 3 miles from the runway. During a postaccident examination, the propellers were found unfeathered, & the right engine fuel selector was in the main tank position. The emergency procedure listed the best single engine speed as 85 kts. The procedure for engine fire/failure was to feather the propeller & to move the respective fuel selector to 'OFF.' Examination revealed the number 11 cylinder on the right engine was cracked. There was evidence of fire, adjacent to the cylinder on the cowling, which consisted of scorching, sooting, & a burned through area of the underside of the right engine cowling. The copilot indicated a previous problem with the feathering system, but maintenance records did not contain any previous discrepancies regarding this anomaly.
Probable cause
failure of the #11 cylinder on the right (#2) engine, which resulted in an in-flight fire and loss of power in that engine; and a malfunction/failure of the #2 feathering system, which led to a subsequent forced landing before the flight crew could return to the airport. A factor related to the accident was failure of the flight crew to increase the left (#1) engine rpm (in accordance with emergency procedures) after loss of power in the #2 engine.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL97LA012
- Event ID
- 20001208X06843
- Case number
- ATL97LA012
- 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: 4cae4781a456a06d2ff3b696da153a5ff45d77635b20b89104566e0592c8867f; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:20:56.064Z.