MIA97LA155 · Piper PA31-350
Piper PA31-350 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Cyril E. King Airport (STT) to V. C. Bird International Airport (TAPA)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA97LA155
- 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
Piper PA31-350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA31
- 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
- N4088G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cyril E. King Airport (STT)To V. C. Bird International Airport (TAPA), ST JOHNS
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, not followed
- Pilot in command › Engine shutdown, not performed
- Pilot in command › Propeller feathering, not performed
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
The right engine began to surge, emit black smoke, and lose power shortly after takeoff. The pilot did not shutdown the engine or feather the propeller. The pilot stated that while turning to return to the airport, the aircraft almost stalled, and he lowered the nose and descended toward the sea. He was not able to maintain altitude, and the aircraft was ditched in the sea. Postcrash examination of the right engine showed no evidence to indicate the reason for the loss of power and black smoke emission.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to follow emergency procedures for loss of power in the right engine, by failing to shutdown the right engine and feather the right propeller. This resulted in the aircraft being unable to maintain altitude and a subsequent ditching in the sea. A related factor was the loss of right engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA97LA155
- Event ID
- 20001208X07975
- Case number
- MIA97LA155
- 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: 8f7c47cd93fd7593778cb76f9958f6be936270b8f0d85b3055eeacd6d068d288; retrieved 2026-09-22T19:48:31.005Z.