Conquest Air Convair C131 B accident
Convair C131 B · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From Lynden Pindling International Airport (NAS) to Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA19LA096
- 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
- 1 · 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
Convair C131 B
- Aircraft type
- Convair C131
- 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
- N145GT
- Operator
- Conquest Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lynden Pindling International Airport (NAS), Nassau, AOTo Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF), Miami, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 64 years (built 1955)
- 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
- 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 › Aircraft propeller/rotor
- Not determined › Not determined
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the first officer, during the first cargo flight of the day, the left engine propeller control was not working properly and the captain indicated that they would shut down the airplane and contact maintenance if the left engine propeller control could not be reset before the return flight. For the return flight, the engines started normally, and both propellers were cycled. The captain and the first officer were able to reset the left propeller control, so the airplane departed with the first officer as the pilot flying.
The takeoff and initial climb were normal; however, as the airplane climbed through 4,000 ft, the left engine propeller control stopped working and the power was stuck at 2,400 rpm. The captain tried to adjust the propeller control and inadvertently increased power to 2,700 rpm. The captain then took control of the airplane and tried to stabilize the power on both engines. He leveled the airplane at 4,500 ft, canceled the instrument flight rules flight plan, and flew via visual flight rules direct toward the destination airport. The first officer suggested that they return to the departure airport, but the captain elected to continue as planned (The destination airport was located about 160 nautical miles from the departure airport). The first officer's postaccident statements indicated that he did not challenge the captain's decision.
When the flight began the descent to 1,500 ft, the right engine began to surge and lose power. The captain and the first officer performed the engine failure checklist, and the captain feathered the propeller and shut down the engine. Shortly afterward, the left engine began to surge and lose power. The captain told the first officer to declare an emergency.
The airplane continued to descend, and the airplane impacted the water "violently," about 32 miles east of the destination airport. The captain was unresponsive after the impact and the first officer was unable to lift the captain from his seat. Because the cockpit was filling rapidly with water, the first officer grabbed the life raft and exited the airplane from where the tail section had separated from the empennage.
The first officer did not know what caused both engines to lose power. The airplane was not recovered from the ocean, so examination and testing to determine the cause of the engine failures could not be performed. According to the operator, the flight crew should have landed as soon as practical after the first sign of a mechanical issue. Thus, the crew should have diverted to the closest airport when the left engine propeller control stopped working and not continued the flight toward the destination airport.
Probable cause
The captain's decision to continue with the flight with a malfunctioning left engine propeller control and the subsequent loss of engine power on both engines for undetermined reasons, which resulted in ditching into the ocean. Contributing to the accident was the first officer's failure to challenge the captain's decision to continue with the flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA19LA096
- Event ID
- 20190211X75025
- Case number
- ERA19LA096
- 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: 363ff3ab658ff866869a1d1481c5cef8deaf1251bf9b5e82ed27bb06c6306b9c; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:54:06.098Z.