CHI98LA178 · Cessna 414
Cessna 414 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From North Platte Regional Airport Lee Bird Field (LBF) to Kearney Regional Airport (EAR)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI98LA178
- 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
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
- N888AA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Platte Regional Airport Lee Bird Field (LBF)To Kearney Regional Airport (EAR), Kearney, NE
- 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
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Engine assembly, bearing › Fractured
- Engine assembly, bearing › Slipped
- Engine assembly, crankshaft › Fractured
- Fluid, oil › Starvation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane had just taken off and was at approximately 300 agl when the right engine 'had a sudden and catastrophic failure.' The right propeller stopped spinning with the blades in the low-pitch position. The pilot initiated a right turn back toward the airport, but the airplane would not maintain altitude. The pilot rolled out of the turn, but the descent continued until the airplane struck the trees. Examination of the airplane's right engine revealed that the crankshaft was broken at the number 3 short cheek, just forward of the number two cylinder piston rod. The number two crankshaft bearing was broken and melted. The oil feed line to the number two bearing was blocked by a piece of the broken bearing. The Single Engine Climb Data table in the Cessna 414 Pilot's Operating Handbook indicates that an airplane weighing 5,680 pounds, with gear and flaps retracted and the inoperative propeller in feather, operating at a density altitude of 5,055 feet, will have a best climb indicated airspeed of 115 knots. The rate of climb will be 308 feet per minute.
Probable cause
the slipped number two bearing in the airplane's right engine, which blocked the bearing's oil feed line, causing the bearing and the crankshaft to overheat and fracture. A factor contributing to this accident was the trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI98LA178
- Event ID
- 20001211X10030
- Case number
- CHI98LA178
- 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: b44cbdbb974b597bd76f71a888c0c198c06cc2c374bf352de37e09f1caaddf80; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:08:40.853Z.