ANC11CA075 · Piper PA-32-301
Redemption Piper PA-32-301 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) on approach
From Kodiak Airport (PADQ) to Kodiak Airport (PADQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC11CA075
- 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
Piper PA-32-301
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N8152Z
- Operator
- Redemption
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kodiak Airport (PADQ), Kodiak, AKTo Kodiak Airport (PADQ), Kodiak, 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 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
- 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 (partial)
- 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 power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and the operator's director of maintenance (DOM) were on a postmaintenance check flight. According to the pilot, while approaching to land, the throttle control became inoperative, resulting in a partial loss of engine power. The pilot selected a tidal beach as a forced landing site but was unable to reach it and landed in shallow water short of the site. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the wings and fuselage. The DOM reported that, while troubleshooting a recurring complaint of low engine manifold pressure, he noticed that the castellated nut, which connects the throttle linkage to the fuel control servo, was loose. He said that he removed the cotter pin, tightened the nut, and reinstalled the cotter pin. A postaccident engine examination revealed that a self-locking nut was missing from the throttle linkage arm, resulting in the disconnection of the throttle cable. The DOM said that the missing locknut was not the same one that he tightened but was a nut on the other end of the throttle linkage arm, about 2 inches from the castellated nut that he tightened. The DOM noted that he should have checked the security of the self-locking nut, but he did not. The self-locking nut was not recovered.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power while on approach to land due to a disconnected throttle control linkage, and the maintenance director's inadequate inspection of the throttle linkage during maintenance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC11CA075
- Event ID
- 20110813X60348
- Case number
- ANC11CA075
- 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: ab415309d4203b2c96721a1e7869da5126c4a147b5a2b81bbe2478a6a75252c5; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:36:03.462Z.