Mokulele Flight Service Cessna 337C accident
Cessna 337C · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keāhole (KOA) to Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keāhole (KOA)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX01LA181
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 337C
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 337
- 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
- N2479S
- Operator
- Mokulele Flight Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keāhole (KOA), Kona, HITo Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keāhole (KOA), Kona, 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During cruise, both engines lost power, and the pilot ditched the airplane in the ocean, where it sank off the coastline in 150 feet of water. The purpose of the flight was a tour of the Island of Hawaii. An hour into the flight, after transitioning through Hilo's airspace, the pilot noted fluctuations in both engines with a continued gradual loss of power. He conducted emergency procedures, which included advancing the mixtures, throttles, and propellers, with no change. He also switched to the auxiliary tanks, with the same results, both engines continued to lose power and eventually quit. The pilot briefed the passengers on ditching procedures, opened the emergency exit door, and landed straight ahead. He decided to land in the ocean due to calm and smooth ocean conditions. The pilot and passengers extricated themselves out of the airplane after ditching. There were no unresolved mechanical anomalies with the airplane prior to the accident flight. It had been refueled the night before with 44 gallons of fuel. The estimated fuel on board the airplane prior to departure was 75 gallons. Passengers confirmed that both engines quit. The airplane was not recovered.
Probable cause
A dual loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX01LA181
- Event ID
- 20010604X01073
- Case number
- LAX01LA181
- 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: investigation status, coordinates. 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: 90b0f2169d60a82afe678cf9a63fa15f4ae89e614bb4a1b9efa6272e0386d698; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:13:31.866Z.