ANC97LA158 · Pilatus PC-6-350
Pilatus PC-6-350 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during takeoff
From GRASSHOPPER STP, AK to Warren "Bud" Woods Palmer Municipal Airport (PAQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC97LA158
- 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
Pilatus PC-6-350
- Aircraft type
- Pilatus PC-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
- N4911
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From GRASSHOPPER STP, AKTo Warren "Bud" Woods Palmer Municipal Airport (PAQ), AK
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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 (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
- Propeller system/accessories › Underspeed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that while departing an 800-foot off-airport landing area, the airplane did not become airborne and collided with trees at the departure end. The airplane was 1,268 pounds under maximum takeoff weight. The pilot had operated from this location about 500 times. Winds were calm. The propeller had been overhauled 32 hours prior to the accident. The airplane had only been operated from a 3,600 feet long runway since the overhaul. A test run of the engine/propeller combination was performed. The engine did not reach design takeoff static rpm required to produce takeoff power during the first two tests. Subsequent test operation of the engine was normal. Testing and disassembly of the propeller governor failed to reveal any defects.
Probable cause
An underspeed of the propeller system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC97LA158
- Event ID
- 20001208X08778
- Case number
- ANC97LA158
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1997-09-30.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 36e9433a8cd8ee872f75d2a3fa8d3f8f9f08f722024a4d95f778221192fe0b9f; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:29:59.130Z.