ANC17LA006 · Piper PA32R 301
STATE OF ALASKA Department Of Public Safety Piper PA32R 301 · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure during initial climb
From Bethel Airport (BET) to Nunapitchuk Airport (16A)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC17LA006
- 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
- Government
- 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 PA32R 301
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA32
- 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
- N9084J
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bethel Airport (BET), Bethel, AKTo Nunapitchuk Airport (16A), Nunapitchuk, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 31 years (built 1985)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Powerplant system/component malfunction/failure
- 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 reported that the airplane took off, and at 800 ft, the engine oil pressure dropped to zero. The pilot stated that he immediately turned back to the departure airport and that, while he was maneuvering for landing, the engine began "popping loudly," and engine oil began emanating from the oil access panel and splattered onto the windscreen. Shortly after, the engine lost all power. The pilot subsequently conducted a forced landing on tundra about 1 mile from the airport. During the landing roll, the nose and left landing gears collapsed, and the left wing and fuselage impacted terrain.
After the accident, a large puddle of oil was found on the airport ramp where the engine was started. During the recovery of the airplane, the engine oil access panel was found open with no dipstick present. The oil access panel had an impact mark on the underside that was about the same size as the dipstick top.
Postaccident examination of the engine revealed that there were holes and fractures on the top and bottom of the crankcase and that no oil was present in the oil tank. Several connecting rods were separated from the crankshaft and exhibited mechanical and thermal damage, consistent with oil starvation. When compressed air was applied to the right oil cooler, air was expelled from a small fracture between the brazed plates. Detailed examination of the oil cooler revealed an overstress fracture at a brazed seam; the fracture exhibited signatures of overstress with no evidence of preexisting defects. No anomalies of the oil pressure and temperature regulating systems were noted.
It is likely that the oil cooler seam fractured after the engine start and that most of the engine oil was expelled before takeoff. Once the oil supply to the engine was exhausted, the internal friction of the metal components resulted in thermal damage and connecting rod fractures and the subsequent loss of all engine power. It is possible that the crankcase was pressurized during the engine failure sequence, which resulted in the oil dipstick being ejected from the engine. The reason for the engine oil overpressure in the oil cooler could not be determined.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to oil starvation, which resulted from an oil cooler leak at a fractured brazed seam.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC17LA006
- Event ID
- 20161114X33155
- Case number
- ANC17LA006
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2016-11-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d0785b257874476adf0bdb294a821415b3d5dddc2d07b88c7e865ddebab19dfc; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:49:42.191Z.