ERA14LA368 · Gulfstream-Schweizer A/C Corp G-164B
Croom Aviation Gulfstream-Schweizer A/C Corp G-164B · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Donalsonville Municipal Airport (17J) to 1J0 · Bonifay, FL
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14LA368
- 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
Gulfstream-Schweizer A/C Corp G-164B Possible conflict
- Aircraft type
- Gulfstream Schweizer A/c G-164
- 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
- N425LS
- Operator
- Croom Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Donalsonville Municipal Airport (17J), Donalsonville, GATo 1J0 · Bonifay, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 35 years (built 1979)
- 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 power plant
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot was conducting a cross-country positioning flight in the turboprop airplane. The pilot reported that, while on approach to the destination airport, the propeller began wind-milling, and "pieces of metal" began coming out of the right engine exhaust duct. The pilot subsequently conducted a forced landing, during which the airplane struck trees.
Postaccident examination of the engine revealed that the No. 2 bearing oil nozzle jet was partially blocked, which resulted in oil starvation and the subsequent disintegration of the No. 2 roller bearing. The material blocking the oil nozzle jet was consistent with material used in the composition of the bearing races and rollers.
A review of maintenance records revealed that the No. 1 engine bearing had failed about 1,000 flight hours before the accident and was replaced along with the No. 2 bearing. In addition, the Nos. 1 through 5 bearings were replaced about 300 flight hours before the accident. The investigation could not determine if the No. 2 bearing oil nozzle jet was blocked by bearing material as a result of the previous bearing failure or if the blockage developed during the engine's subsequent operation.
Probable cause
A partial blockage of the No. 2 bearing oil nozzle jet by bearing material, which resulted in oil starvation and the subsequent failure of the No. 2 bearing and total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14LA368
- Event ID
- 20140731X41906
- Case number
- ERA14LA368
- 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: 926086898823a81f61d6b8cd77b9468ab0980be1943f3b97668c2af6b315034c; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:02:50.632Z.