Alas del Caribe Airlines Piper PA-32-260 accident
Piper PA-32-260 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Cyril E. King Airport (STT) to X95 · FAJARO, PR
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA91LA168
- 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
Piper PA-32-260
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N5513J
- Operator
- Alas del Caribe Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cyril E. King Airport (STT), St. ThomasTo X95 · FAJARO, 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 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
- En route · descent
- 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
- Fluid, oil › Exhaustion
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Culebra, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
AFTER DESCENDING, THE PILOT OBSERVED THE OIL PRESSURE WAS DROPPING. HE INITIATED A TURN TO LAND AT AN ARPT ON A NEARBY ISLAND BUT STATED THE ENG THEN QUIT. THE PILOT WAS UNABLE TO LAND AT THE ARPT AND DITCHED THE ACFT. THE ENG WAS RECOVERED, AND THE OIL SUMP WAS DETERIORATED DUE TO SALT WATER IMMERSION. THE ENG WAS DISASSEMBLED WHICH REVEALED THE NO. 5 CYLINDER CONNECTING ROD FAILED DUE TO OIL EXHAUSTION DUE TO UNDETERMINED REASONS. DURING THE DISASSEMBLY OF THE ENG ONLY TRACE AMOUNTS OF OIL WERE FOUND. THE LOGBOOKS RECORDED AN ANNUAL INSPECTION WAS PERFORMED THE DAY BEFORE THE ACCIDENT AND THE ACFT HAD OPERATED ABOUT 1 HOUR SINCE.
Probable cause
OIL EXHAUSTION FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA91LA168
- Event ID
- 20001212X17344
- Case number
- MIA91LA168
- 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: f764790d8c1d1b198ca6ff3bd0110df6dd24d30d5d96768ec0657cc12023ecaf; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:54:26.940Z.