LAX89LA049 · Cessna 337E
Brents International Cessna 337E · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK) to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX89LA049
- 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
Cessna 337E
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 337
- 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
- N1259M
- Operator
- Brents International
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK), Oakland, CATo Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL), Honolulu, HI
- 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 · 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Engine assembly, cylinder › Overtemperature
- Fluid, oil › Overtemperature
- Pilot in command › Powerplant controls, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT RPRTD THAT AFTER ABOUT 10 HRS ON AN OVERWATER FERRY FLT, HE NOTICED HIGH OIL TEMP & LOW OIL PRESSURE INDCNS FROMTHE REAR ENG. EVENTUALLY THE REAR ENG BEGAN RUNNING ROUGH, SO HE SHUT IT DOWN, FEATHERED ITS PROP AND 'INCREASED POWER ON THE FRONT ENGINE'. ABOUT 1 HR LATER, THE FRONT ENG BEGAN INDICATING A HIGH CYLINDER HEAD TEMP (CHT). HE REDUCED POWER (SOMEWHAT) ON THE FRONT ENG & RESTARTED THE REAR ENG. HOWEVER, AFTER ABOUT 10 MIN, THE REAR ENG BEGAN RUNNING SO ROUGH, HE SHUT DOWN & SECURED IT AGAIN. SUBSEQUENTLY, WHILE TALKING TO A COAST GUARD C-130 & GIVING A POSITION RPRT, THE FRONT ENG LOST POWER COMPLETELY. THE PLT REPORTED THERE WAS SUFFICIENT FUEL ABOARD AND THE FRONT ENG WAS RUNNING ON THE MN TANK. THE PLT ATMTD A RESTART, BUT WAS UNABLE TO GET EITHER ENG TO RUN. HE DITCHED THE ACFT IN THE OCEAN & WAS EVENTUALLY RESCUED. THE ACFT WAS NOT RECOVERED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX89LA049
- Event ID
- 20001213X27283
- Case number
- LAX89LA049
- 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 1988-11-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 22dfd3b3dc5fc069698102ae44b9b4188ae5494c9ab750cab860a163bf1f21ea; retrieved 2026-09-23T08:22:31.037Z.