Island Airlines Hawaii Convair 440 accident
Convair 440 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Honolulu, HI to MAUI, HI
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX82DA042
- 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
Convair 440
- Aircraft type
- Convair 440
- 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
- N21DR
- Operator
- Island Airlines Hawaii
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Honolulu, HITo MAUI, 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
- 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
- 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
- Engine assembly, piston › Failure, partial
- Engine assembly, ring › Failure, partial
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER LIFT-OFF, THE PILOT CALLED FOR THE LANDING GEAR TO BE RAISED. AS THE PLANE WAS CLIMBING THROUGH ABOUT 100 FT AGL, THE PILOT NOTED A LOSS OF POWER IN THE RIGHT ENGINE AND SAW A FIRE LIGHT. GROUND WITNESSES HEARD A MUFFLED EXPLOSION AND SAW SMOKE AND FIRE TRAILING FROM THE RIGHT ENGINE. THE RIGHT ENGINE WAS FEATHERED AND THE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO RETURN TO THE AIRPORT, BUT WAS UNABLE TO MAINTAIN ALTITUDE. THE PLANE WAS DITCHED NEAR THE ENTRANCE OF PEARL HARBOR. A TEARDOWN OF THE RIGHT ENGINE REVEALED THAT THE TOP RING LANDS OF THE NO. 10 AND NO. 14 PISTONS WERE BROKEN AND THE TOP RING WAS MISSING FROM EACH OF THE PISTONS. ALSO, THE REAR COUNTER- BALANCE DRIVE INTERMEDIATE GEAR WAS WORN AND 11 GEAR TEETH WERE MISSING. ADDITIONALLY, THE REAR COUNTERBALANCE DRIVE GEAR WAS WORN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX82DA042
- Event ID
- 20020917X02159
- Case number
- LAX82DA042
- 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 1982-01-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7232e3214ccb5461a7b38b35e33999cc7e04cb2db93c8d276c10d44f55019b0f; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:13:03.130Z.