Panorama Air Tours Piper PA-31-350 accident
Piper PA-31-350 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) to Molokai Airport (MKK)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX88FA075
- 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
- 8 · 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-31-350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N712AN
- Operator
- Panorama Air Tours
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL), Honolulu, HITo Molokai Airport (MKK), MOLOKAI, 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 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 · 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
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vmc), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLIGHT WAS TO BE FLOWN ACROSS A 22 MILE CHANNEL BETWEEN ISLANDS ON AN OVERCAST NIGHT WITH NO MOON AND NO GROUND REFERENCE LIGHTS. THE AIRCRAFT DISAPPEARED FROM RADAR AND, AFTER EXTENSIVE SEARCHES, COULD NOT BE FOUND. A THREE DIMENSIONAL FLIGHT TRACK WAS RECONSTRUCTED USING RECORDED RADAR DATA. THE DATA INDICATED THAT IN THE LAST 60 SEC THE AIRCRAFT SLOWED FROM 170 TO 95 KTS, GAINED 500 FT IN ALTITUDE, AND TURNED LEFT 190 DEGREES BEFORE ABRUPTLY DISAPPEARING FROM RADAR. FLIGHT TESTS INDICATED THAT THE MOVEMENTS OF THE AIRCRAFT IN THE LAST 60 SEC OF THE FLIGHT WERE CONSISTENT WITH A LOSS OF THE LEFT ENGINE, WITHOUT COMPENSATION BY THE PILOT. THE OPERATOR'S TRAINING PROGRAM DID NOT PROVIDE FOR NIGHT OR INSTRUMENT FLIGHT CONDITIONS. THE LAST DOCUMENTED INSTRUMENT TIME FOR THE PILOT WAS 15 MONTHS PRIOR DURING A CHECKRIDE. THE PILOT FLEW SPORADIC NIGHT FLIGHTS. THE PILOT HAD PREVIOUSLY FLOWN DURING THE DAY AND WAS ON HIS THIRTEENTH HOUR OF DUTY. AIRCRAFT DAMAGE AND INJURY INDEX PRESUMED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX88FA075
- Event ID
- 20001213X32713
- Case number
- LAX88FA075
- 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 1987-12-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3bf4f4bee9bf88d5dd4d8d9c06ec04aee18693a7a0e2ce89393cb12e8058bd82; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:12:15.123Z.