ANC19LA011 · Piper PA-22-150
J & H Sewing & Vacuum Piper PA-22-150 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From Soldotna Airport (SXQ) to Lake Hood Seaplane Base (LHD)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC19LA011
- 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
Piper PA-22-150
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-22
- 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
- N7640D
- Operator
- J & H Sewing & Vacuum
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Soldotna Airport (SXQ), Soldotna, AKTo Lake Hood Seaplane Base (LHD), Anchorage, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 62 years (built 1957)
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that while in level cruise flight he noticed the smell of burning oil, which was immediately followed by a change in engine sound, followed by a partial loss of engine power. The engine continued to lose power and the pilot selected a snow-covered beach as a forced landing site. During touchdown, as the airplane's main landing gear wheels contacted an area of deep snow, it abruptly nosed over, sustaining substantial damage to the wings, fuselage, and empennage. Examination of the engine revealed that there was no engine oil in the sump. An oil cooler B-nut, which was located on the right side of the oil cooler, was found loose, and there was a significant oil streaking on the right side of the fuselage. Review of maintenance records revealed that there had been no recent maintenance activity to the oil cooler or other engine components adjacent to the loose B-nut. Given the accident pilot’s account of the accident, along with the discovery of the loose oil cooler B-nut, it is likely that the engine failed due to oil starvation after all engine oil was lost through the loose B-nut.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to oil starvation as the result of a loose B-nut fitting on the engine oil cooler, resulting in a forced landing to a soft, snow-covered surface, and a subsequent nose over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC19LA011
- Event ID
- 20190125X52719
- Case number
- ANC19LA011
- 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, 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: c54141fdb66ea1cda6593b74f7e1890c06446a3eace0fcd4e38fb7bec1170800; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:33:31.595Z.