CEN14LA081 · Rockwell International 112
Sunflower Farm & Ranch Rockwell International 112 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Hammond Northshore Regional Airport (HDC) to Hammond Northshore Regional Airport (HDC)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA081
- 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
Rockwell International 112
- Aircraft type
- Rockwell 112
- 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
- N1203J
- Operator
- Sunflower Farm & Ranch
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hammond Northshore Regional Airport (HDC), Hammond, LATo Hammond Northshore Regional Airport (HDC), Hammond, LA
- Aircraft age
- About 39 years (built 1974)
- 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
- 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 power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, while in cruise flight, he noticed a lack of engine oil pressure after smelling an odor in the cockpit and that he had to reduce engine power to keep the propeller from exceeding its maximum operating speed. The engine gradually lost total power over a period of 90 seconds. The pilot conducted a forced landing in a field, and the left wing was substantially damaged when it collided with a fence post.
A postaccident examination revealed an engine oil leak from a fractured propeller governor oil supply line. The oil line was found inadequately supported by a single clamp, which was also fractured. The engine manufacturer had previously issued a service bulletin (SB) to address several reports of engine failures due to oil starvation that had resulted from fractured governor lines. In all cases, either one or both of the manufacturer-specified clamps and/or supports were missing. The SB stated that the oil line assembly should be visually inspected to determine whether both supports were properly installed and intact. Additionally, the Federal Aviation Administration had previously issued an airworthiness directive (AD) that required the external governor oil line to be supported by at least two clamps/clips to prevent the oil line from fracturing. The airplane's governor oil supply line had been replaced about 47 hours before the accident; however, the oil line assembly was not installed in compliance with the AD, SB, or the engine overhaul manual.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to oil starvation because of a fractured governor oil line, which resulted from the improper installation of the governor oil line assembly during the last oil line replacement.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA081
- Event ID
- 20131210X33244
- Case number
- CEN14LA081
- 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: b2b39468a909d8b4c08098899ae4eac03e7ce6b08e021e41f2d474e4a5a680cc; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:10:49.613Z.