ERA10LA284 · Cessna 337G
Cessna 337G · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Valdosta Regional Airport (VLD) to Shady International Airport (FA49)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10LA284
- 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 337G
- 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
- N72268
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Valdosta Regional Airport (VLD), Valdosta, GATo Shady International Airport (FA49), Ocala, FL
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Loss of engine power (total)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft propeller/rotor
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During cruise flight, the rear engine on the twin engine airplane incurred a total loss of power, and the pilot executed a forced landing to a field. During the landing, the airplane struck several trees, separating the left wing from the fuselage. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the front propeller was bent and the rear engine's propeller was feathered. Oil spatter was visible on the underside of the horizontal stabilizer and elevator. Examination of the rear engine revealed that the end of a connecting rod was protruding from a hole in the top of the engine case. Further examination revealed numerous problems indicative of excessive wear, improper maintenance, and inadequate inspection. Maintenance records for the airplane and engines were incomplete, and the only entries were for the yearly annual inspections. No entries regarding repairs, alterations, part replacements, oil changes, or preventive maintenance were listed. According to the engine manufacturer, the engine should have been overhauled at 1,500 hours. Total time in service for the failed rear engine however was 2,404.3 hours.
When asked about the airplane manufacturer's procedures for a loss of power, the pilot was unable to articulate them, and when asked about his subsequent actions, the pilot advised that he had not feathered the propellers (the rear propeller may have feathered when oil pressure was lost). According to the manufacturer, the ENGINE-OUT DURING FLIGHT checklist should have been used to determine the inoperative engine and secure it. Operational data in the owner's manual indicated that, if the airplane was configured using the checklist, it would have had sufficient residual performance to continue flight.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to follow the published engine-out procedures after a total loss of power in the rear engine. Contributing to the accident was the inadequate maintenance and inspection of the engine by the pilot and maintenance personnel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10LA284
- Event ID
- 20100527X05635
- Case number
- ERA10LA284
- 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. 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: 3ce0ea909fd7f786b2b39df55d32602f49bf1184bc4896f38e0a05c95f924605; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:15:05.786Z.