ANC21LA018 · Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA 40
George'S Aviation Services Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA 40 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From an unrecorded airport to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (PHNL)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC21LA018
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA 40
- Aircraft type
- Diamond DA-40
- 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
- N680DS
- Operator
- George'S Aviation Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (PHNL), Honolulu, HI
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 2006)
- 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
- Approach · IFR missed approach
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the flight instructor, after conducting a practice instrument approach and a subsequent touch-and-go landing in the single-engine airplane, they executed the published missed approach procedure which included holding at a fix located about six miles offshore. Shortly after establishing the airplane in the hold the engine began to vibrate. In an effort to correct for the vibration, the flight instructor moved the mixture to the full rich position, but the engine vibration increased followed by a loud bang. A check of the multi-function display’s engine page revealed no exhaust gas temperature on the number 2-cylinder and a complete loss of oil pressure.
The flight instructor then disengaged the autopilot and turned the airplane toward the shoreline. A “MAYDAY” call was transmitted to air traffic control (ATC) as the cockpit began to fill with smoke and oil became evident on the engine cowling. The fresh air window vents were opened in an effort to vacate the cockpit of smoke and ATC provided vectors to a nearby airport. During the emergency descent, while attempting to maintain best glide speed, they tried to restart the engine to no avail, and subsequently secured the airplane, donned their life preservers, and opened the airplane’s cockpit canopy. The flight instructor ditched the airplane in the ocean waters. During the ditching the empennage separated from the fuselage resulting in substantial damage.
The airplane sank in the ocean waters and was not recovered or examined after the accident; therefore, the reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined based on the available evidence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC21LA018
- Event ID
- 20210302102696
- Case number
- ANC21LA018
- 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, 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: a16dd747e1d38466f2e07c2a229311602d31af09d00d99f54b92f2818ecd90b5; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:45:26.599Z.