Panorama Air Tours Piper PA-31-350 accident
Piper PA-31-350 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Kahului International Airport (OGG) to Lihue Airport (LIH)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX87LA030
- 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-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
- N33WH
- Operator
- Panorama Air Tours
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kahului International Airport (OGG), Kahului, HITo Lihue Airport (LIH), Lihue, 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Propeller feathering, not performed
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A PIPER PA 31-350 LOST POWER AND COLLIDED WITH SIGN POSTS AFTER LANDING ON A ROAD. IT WAS REPORTED TO THE FAA THAT THE AIRCRAFT'S RIGHT ENGINE WAS PRODUCING PARTIAL POWER AND THE AIRCRAFT WAS UNABLE TO MAINTAIN ALTITUDE ON THE LEFT ENGINE. THE PILOT NEVER CONFIRMED WHETHER OR NOT THE RIGHT ENGINE HAD FAILED AND NEVER FEATHERED THE PROPELLER ALLOWING THE PROPELLER TO WINDMILL. THE PILOT MAINTAINED A DESCENT AT VYSE AND LANDED ON A ROAD TWO MILES SHORT OF THE AIRPORT. EXAMINATION OF THE ACFT REVEALED NO MECHANICAL FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION AFTER THE ACCIDENT. THE RIGHT ENGINE AND FUEL SYSTEM WERE TESTED WITH NO DISCREPANCIES FOUND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX87LA030
- Event ID
- 20001213X35000
- Case number
- LAX87LA030
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1986-10-31.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6141ec7af397f7f6cee8daf1826d48ffd28c6c1cb681c64f22100ead9bcd03c3; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:51:18.217Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N33WH; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.