Wallace Floor Covering Cessna 335 accident
Cessna 335 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Eastern Oregon Regional Airport at Pendleton (PDT) to S22 · Hermiston, OR
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA86FA028
- 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
Cessna 335
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 335
- 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
- N2711U
- Operator
- Wallace Floor Covering
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Eastern Oregon Regional Airport at Pendleton (PDT), Pendleton, ORTo S22 · Hermiston, OR
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel system › Water
- Fuel system, cap › Leak
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, improper
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AT 500 FT AGL ON DEPARTURE CLIMB, WITH LNDG GEAR UNRETRACTED, PLT FELT VIBRATIONS SIMILAR TO ROUGH-RUNNING ENGINE BUT NOTED NO INSTRUMENT INDICATIONS, THROTTLED BACK AND LEVELED OFF. WHILE TROUBLE-SHOOTING PROBLEM, PLT NOTED ACFT WAS DESCENDING AT 1200 FPM, ADDED PWR BUT VIBRATION INCREASED SO PLT REDUCED PWR, CONCENTRATED ON MAINTAINING 'BLUE-LINE' SPD (105 KNOTS), AND ALLOWED ADFT TO CONTRACT LEVEL SNOW-COVERED TERRAIN IN LEVEL ATTITUDE, GEAR DOWN, FLAPS UP, AT SPEED IN EXCESS OF 105 KNOTS. TEAR-DOWN OF ENGINES AND PROPS REVEALED NO PRE-IMPACT MECHANICAL FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION. BOTH FUEL SELECTORS WERE FOUND TO CONTAIN WATER. ACFT HAD HISTORY OF WATER IN FUEL SYSTEM. FUEL FILLER GAP INNER 'O' RINGS FOUND TO BE EXCESSIVELY WORN AND NO LONGER SEALING
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA86FA028
- Event ID
- 20001214X38492
- Case number
- SEA86FA028
- 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 1985-12-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: db3b5a9573f976f4294cc3a3205c50a95b9799104844c4862007e23110350449; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:12:16.318Z.