ERA13IA006 · Lockheed WP-3D
Lockheed WP-3D · Incident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From St. John's International Airport (CYYT) to St. John's International Airport (CYYT)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13IA006
- 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
- Government
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Lockheed WP-3D
- Aircraft type
- Lockheed WP-3
- 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
- N42RF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St. John's International Airport (CYYT), ST JOHN'S NFLDTo St. John's International Airport (CYYT), St. JOHN'S NFLD
- 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Powerplant › Blocked(partial)
- Powerplant › Contamination
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While maneuvering at 3,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean, three of the airplane's four engines experienced compressor stalls and associated tailpipe fires. The flight crew was able to extinguish the three tailpipe fires and eventually restart the three engines. The airplane subsequently proceeded to its departure airport and landed uneventfully. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed extreme salt buildup in all four engines. After the salt was rinsed away with water, the engine efficiencies improved greatly and no other anomalies were noted.
Probable cause
Extensive salt buildup in the inlets of all four engines, which resulted in compressor stalls and tailpipe fires in three of the four engines.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13IA006
- Event ID
- 20121004X53806
- Case number
- ERA13IA006
- 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, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the UTC date the NTSB stores; the local time zone is not recorded, so the local date may differ by a day.
- API snapshot SHA-256: aab85e233e6405b3f66222ddff6d18bb58b48f8a43754fa7112f6a361d61e48d; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:13:45.489Z.