Paklook Air Piper PA-32-300 accident
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Aniak Airport (ANI) to Bethel Airport (BET)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC19LA016
- 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
- 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
Piper PA-32-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N4466T
- Operator
- Paklook Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Aniak Airport (ANI), Aniak, AKTo Bethel Airport (BET), Bethel, AK
- Aircraft age
- About 47 years (built 1972)
- 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
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, while in cruise flight, the engine lost partial power, then total power, and the propeller stopped turning. During the subsequent off-airport forced landing on the tundra meadow, the main landing gear separated from the airplane, resulting in substantial damage to the right wing. Examination of the engine revealed a crankshaft failure that was likely a result of fatigue cracking that emanated from the surface of the main journal. The engine was overhauled at a certified repair station about 14 flight hours before the accident. The engine manufacturer overhaul manual stated that the crankshaft was to be inspected using a magnetic particle inspection procedure as part of the overhaul; however, the crankshaft was not inspected as part of the overhaul. It is likely that if the crankshaft had been inspected as indicated, the fatigue cracking would have been detected and corrected during overhaul.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to a fatigue failure of the crankshaft. A contributing factor was the inadequate inspection during the engine’s last overhaul.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC19LA016
- Event ID
- 20190415X62333
- Case number
- ANC19LA016
- 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: local date, investigation status, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2019-04-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 42538156a58ce8c3c05f7eede554ce43af26d51ffd4584daf21f4fc4bdd7d298; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:44:22.467Z.