Hawkins Aero Commander 680T accident
Aero Commander 680T · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI) to Portland Hillsboro Airport (HIO)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA84FA170
- 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
Aero Commander 680T
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander 680
- 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
- N932E
- Operator
- Hawkins
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI), Seattle, WATo Portland Hillsboro Airport (HIO), Hillsboro, 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
- En route · descent
- 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 (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel exhaustion
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT WAS ON A X-COUNTRY TRIP. ON PREVIOUS FLTS OVER THE SAME ROUTE, 2 REFUELING STOPS WERE MADE. DURING THIS TRIP, NO REFUELING WAS ACCOMPLISHED, & WHILE EN ROUTE, THE LOW FUEL WARNING LIGHT CAME ON. THE PLT DECLARED AN EMERGENCY & WASVECTORED & ASSIGNED THE LOWEST POSSIBLE IFR ALT. SHORTLY THEREAFTER, BOTH ENGINES QUIT. WHEN HE ENQUIRED ABOUT NEARBY ARPTS, THE PLT WAS TOLD THERE WERE NONE AND ADVISED TO FIND A ROAD OR SUITABLE AREA TO LAND. THE PLT OVERSHOT A ROAD AFTER FEATHERING BOTH ENGINES AND CRASHED ON AN EMBANKMENT. THERE WAS NO SMELL OF FUEL AT THE SCENE OF THE CRASH. BOTH PROPS WERE IN THE FEATHERED POSITION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA84FA170
- Event ID
- 20001214X40500
- Case number
- SEA84FA170
- 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: b4ae70fc1913faf19478dd1b54c78d13219d38ebe000b3a2126079831f1bbbef; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:39:00.957Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N932E; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.