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Peninsula Airways Saab-Scania AB (Saab) SAAB 340B incident

29 Jul 2008 · Anchorage, AK, United States

Saab-Scania AB (Saab) SAAB 340B · Incident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure during takeoff

From Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC) to Aniak Airport (ANI)

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Event

NTSB case
ANC08IA092
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
Incident
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
Airline
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

Saab-Scania AB (Saab) SAAB 340B

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
N364PX
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC), Anchorage, AKTo Aniak Airport (ANI), Aniak, AK
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 121: Air Carrier
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
Takeoff
Defining eventThe 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
Powerplant system/component malfunction/failure
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
None

Cause areas

  • Aircraft › Aircraft power plant

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

During the takeoff roll, the flight crew of the 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 scheduled passenger flight heard a "pop" coming from the left engine. The takeoff was aborted and the airplane returned to the gate. Maintenance personnel noted that the left engine had a contained engine failure. During the manufacturer's inspection of the engine, they noted that one of the stage 1 gas generator rotor blades had separated below the airfoil platform as a result of high-cycle fatigue. The manufacturer reported that the failure is related to a blade damper binding issue that has been tracked since 2001; Service Bulletin (SB) 72-0475 was issued to address the gas generator rotor blade damper. The manufacturer also recommended that all operators who have not complied with the SB lower the borescope inspection for the hot section from 800 to 400 flight hours. The manufacturer says that to date 95 percent of the affected fleet comply with the SB. The incident engine had been borescoped within the last 400 hours.

Probable cause

The failure of one of the stage 1 gas generator rotor blades due to high-cycle fatigue, resulting in a contained engine failure during the takeoff roll.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record ANC08IA092
Event ID
20080812X01218
Case number
ANC08IA092
Dataset
full-current
Source SHA-256
5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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, damage. 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: a6681f3301d8fed386e4ca5a06d16a720ffacdfe516ac6e5a02c81b4f6878ee0; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:02:41.248Z.