WPR18LA127 · Yakovlev YAK 52
Classic Aircraft Aviation Museum Yakovlev YAK 52 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) during an emergency descent
From Hobby Field (77S) to Scappoose Industrial Airpark (SPB)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR18LA127
- 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
Yakovlev YAK 52
- Aircraft type
- Yakovlev YAK-52
- 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
- N2YK
- Operator
- Classic Aircraft Aviation Museum
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hobby Field (77S), Creswell, ORTo Scappoose Industrial Airpark (SPB), Scappoose, OR
- Aircraft age
- About 25 years (built 1993)
- 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
- Emergency descent
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and passenger were flying the airplane in formation with another airplane on a daytime visual flight rules positioning flight. According to the pilot of the other airplane, while abeam an airport on their route of flight, the accident pilot informed him that the engine had started to "miss" and that they needed to change their destination. As the airplane was south of another airport, the accident pilot informed the pilot of the other airplane that he might have to declare an emergency; however, he did not state the nature of his emergency. The flight continued, despite repeated attempts by the pilot of the other airplane to communicate with the accident pilot with no response. The pilot of the other airplane reported that both airplanes had overflown six airports that would have been suitable for an emergency landing. Ultimately, the accident airplane descended to a low altitude and impacted trees just south of the airport at which the accident pilot had originally intended to land. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and left wing. The accident pilot had no memory of the accident sequence or the events that led to the impact with trees and terrain. The passenger recalled that at one point the engine sputtered. Postaccident examination of the airframe, engine, and accessories revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power during cruise flight for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination did not reveal any mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's decision to continue flight instead of conducting a precautionary landing at nearby airports.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR18LA127
- Event ID
- 20180426X13920
- Case number
- WPR18LA127
- 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, coordinates. 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: 2134c265969eccf654dbecc0c29c0b1e12dc68748ea2ab6330dc02aaf7a50dd8; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:57:36.462Z.