WPR18LA098 · Raytheon Aircraft Company A36
Raytheon Aircraft Company A36 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Yuma International Airport / Marine Corps Air Station Yuma (NYL) to Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR18LA098
- 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
Raytheon Aircraft Company A36
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N207PC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Yuma International Airport / Marine Corps Air Station Yuma (NYL), Yuma, AZTo Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE), Everett, WA
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 2003)
- 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
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was at cruise altitude en route on a cross-country flight from Arizona to Washington when he noted that the engine oil pressure indicated zero and the manifold pressure was near zero. He then heard “…a loud bang, as though the engine had thrown a rod.” The cabin filled with smoke and oil covered the windscreen, and the pilot conducted a forced landing into a stand of trees, during which the airplane sustained substantial damage.
Examination of the airframe revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. An examination of the engine revealed three holes in the crankcase, each consistent with an internal engine failure. All six cylinders remained attached to their respective cylinder bays; there was no indication of impact damage. The Nos. 2, 4 and 5 connecting rods had separated from the crankshaft. All rod bearings displayed lubrication distress consistent with oil starvation. The oil line B-nut attached to the turbocharger scavenge check valve was loose.
Based on the available information, it is likely that the loose oil line B-nut resulted in a gradual loss of oil during the long cross-country flight, which subsequently resulted in the separation of the connecting rods due to oil starvation and a total loss of engine power.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to oil starvation as a result of a loose oil line B-nut.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR18LA098
- Event ID
- 20180304X20724
- Case number
- WPR18LA098
- 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, cause areas. 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: 162b019a39f4bf07871e18b6ba4b1c0668405889f771126c0cdf04ef345393ef; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:33:58.110Z.