IAD05LA022 · Cessna 414
Cessna 414 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Dinwiddie County Airport (PTB) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD05LA022
- 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
- General aviation
- 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 414 Possible conflict
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 414
- 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
- N2EQ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dinwiddie County Airport (PTB), Petersburg, VATo not recorded
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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)
- 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 › Airspeed(vmc), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, improper
- 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
The purpose of the flight was to "check out" the airplane before delivering it to its new owner, and to provide the copilot with an indoctrination ride in the Cessna 414. During the approach, the pilot provided guidance and corrections to the copilot. The copilot flew the airplane to within 200 feet of the ground when the nose of the airplane yawed abruptly to the right. The pilot took control of the airplane, and pushed the engine and propeller controls to the full forward position. He placed the fuel pump switches to the "high" position, retracted the flaps, and attempted to retract the landing gear. With full left rudder and full left aileron applied, he could neither maintain directional control nor stop a roll to the right. The airplane struck the ground and continued into the parking area where it struck an airplane and a waste-oil tank. Examination of the airplane following the accident revealed that the landing gear was down and locked, and the propeller on the right engine was not feathered. The emergency procedure for an engine inoperative go-around required landing gear retraction and a feathered propeller on the inoperative engine. The pilot's handbook further stated, "Climb or continued level flight is improbable with the landing gear extended and the propeller windmilling." After the accident, both pilots stated that they didn't notice a power loss on the right engine until the copilot surrendered the flight controls. The right engine was removed and placed in a test cell. The engine started immediately on the first attempt and ran continuously without interruption.
Probable cause
The partial loss of engine power for undetermined reasons, and the pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed (Vmc).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD05LA022
- Event ID
- 20041222X02020
- Case number
- IAD05LA022
- 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: 651748aec3b10a213f49ff8aaf56fd386a2c92d5226ba784070e067d790ba913; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:27:57.974Z.