ERA18LA110 · Besarick SKYBOLT
Besarick SKYBOLT · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From Punta Gorda Airport (PGD) to Punta Gorda Airport (PGD)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18LA110
- 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
Besarick SKYBOLT
- Aircraft type
- Besarick SKYBOLT
- 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
- N27265
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Punta Gorda Airport (PGD), Punta Gorda, FLTo Punta Gorda Airport (PGD), Punta Gorda, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1981)
- 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 (partial)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
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 flying the airplane on the first flight of a 10-hour break-in period after an engine overhaul. The preflight inspection and ground operations were normal, with no signs of oil leaks. About 35 minutes into the flight, oil appeared on both windscreens, blocking the pilot’s forward visibility; the windscreens eventually became completely covered with oil. The pilot contacted tower personnel, who cleared him to land. The engine then lost partial power. Tower personnel reported smoke coming from the engine. Unable to make the runway, the pilot chose to land the airplane in a field. After landing, the airplane collided with a ditch and came to rest. The engine caught fire, and the pilot egressed the airplane. A postcrash fire consumed most of the wreckage.
Examination of the engine revealed a large hole in the top of the engine case adjacent to the No. 2 cylinder. The No. 2 connecting rod was fractured at the crankshaft. The connecting rod failure was likely the result of oil starvation to the crankshaft. Extensive postcrash fire damage to the engine, hoses, and accessories prevented investigators from determining the source of the oil leak.
Probable cause
A substantial oil leak, which resulted in a partial loss of engine power and failure of the No. 2 connecting rod.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18LA110
- Event ID
- 20180318X80848
- Case number
- ERA18LA110
- 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: 3deb7d2c8b56ba6505c26418e5e39a786dc74c0f7d0ad9e8cdf5e31fb918eb3b; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:39:52.495Z.