Borinquen Air Douglas DC-3 accident
Douglas DC-3 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU) to Robert L. Bradshaw International Airport (SKB)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA86MA217
- 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
- 1 · 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
Douglas DC-3
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-3
- 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
- N27PR
- Operator
- Borinquen Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU), San Juan, PRTo Robert L. Bradshaw International Airport (SKB), ST. KITT
- 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 · climb to 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft handling, improper
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, inadequate
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF, THE ACFT'S CLIMB PERFORMANCE BGN TO DETERIORATE & THE R ENG STARTED TO OVERHEAT. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE R ENG WAS FEATHERED & THE CREW ATTEMPTED TO RETURN TO THE ARPT. THE RADIO TRANSMITTER BCM UNINTELLIGIBLE, SO THE TOWER PSNL CLEARED THE ACFT TO LAND ON RWY 10 & ASKED THE CREW TO KEY THEIR MIKE TWICE, IF THEY UNDERSTOOD. THE MIKE WASKEYED TWICE. THE ACFT ENTERED A R DWNWND FOR RWY 10 AT A VERY LOW ALT. ACCORDING TO WITNESSES, THE ACFT WENT INTO A STEEP BANK AS IT WAS TURNING ONTO A BASE LEG OVER WATER, THE R WING TIP HIT THE WATER & THE ACFT CARTWHEELED & CRASHED. THE COPLT RPRTD THAT AFTER FEATHERING THE R ENG, THE VMC OF 84 KTS WAS MAINTAINED; HOWEVER, HE BELIEVED THE ACFT STALLEDJUST PRIOR TO IMPACT. A TEARDOWN OF THE R ENG REVEALED THE EDGE OF THE #8 PISTON & ITS PISTON RINGS HAD FAILED. METAL FILINGS WERE FOUND IN THE OIL & THE OIL PUMP WAS SCORED. THERE WAS EVIDENCE OF OIL STARVATION TO THE CRANKSHAFT JOURNAL,AS WELL AS PISTON SLAP ASSOCIATED WITH THE RING FAILURE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA86MA217
- Event ID
- 20001213X34261
- Case number
- MIA86MA217
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: f84e4996ddbef108834292152c7d35aad138c08cfa5e6bf7f3a40068e0a5fdc6; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:20:34.033Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N27PR; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.