Martinaire Aviation Cessna 208B accident
Cessna 208B · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Alpine Casparis Municipal Airport (E38) to Maverick County Memorial International Airport (5T9)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17LA254
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Cessna 208B
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 208
- 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
- N9714B
- Operator
- Martinaire Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Alpine Casparis Municipal Airport (E38), Alpine, TXTo Maverick County Memorial International Airport (5T9), Eagle Pass, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 28 years (built 1989)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Loss of engine power (total)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Pole
- 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
While on climbout on a cargo flight, the pilot heard a loud bang, followed by a squealing noise; the engine immediately lost power. The pilot accomplished a forced landing to a field, during which both wings were damaged after contacting power poles.
Examination of the engine revealed the compressor turbine (CT) blades had fractured. Material analysis of the CT blades confirmed operational overtemperature conditions had occurred during previous flights, and significant creep in the microstructure of the blades indicated an imminent cracking probability in all the CT blades. During the last borescope inspection about 3 months before the accident, a crack in a CT blade that could be seen in a video recording of the inspection was not observed by the technician who conducted the inspection. It is likely that this CT blade failed due to creep and the undetected crack.
The engine's compressor turbine vane ring had features different from an original equipment manufacturer part, including cooling air ducts that were a different size; however, the investigation was not able to determine if cooling air performance was compromised. The CT vane axial positioning, which was staggered, likely increased vibrational loads on the CT blades; however, the investigation was not able to determine if this contributed to the CT blade longevity and crack initiation.
Probable cause
Fracture of a compressor turbine (CT) blade due to operational overtemperatures and the failure of a maintenance technician to detect an existing crack in the CT blade during the last engine inspection.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17LA254
- Event ID
- 20170704X05501
- Case number
- CEN17LA254
- 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: 85915e1c885a412dfc41e1ec08a020e142b3f4dfa93412f465cbf0689dee003d; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:29:40.136Z.