Big Island Air Cessna P337H accident
Cessna P337H · Accident during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC23LA023
- 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
- 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
Cessna P337H
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 337
- 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
- N5KR
- Operator
- Big Island Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 44 years (built 1979)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that during the preflight inspection and engine run-up, he noted no anomalies with the airplane. Then, on departure, the airplane lost partial power. The pilot performed an emergency landing to the runway overrun area with the landing gear retracted, and the airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage. Postaccident examination of the engines revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. During the examination the rear engine started normally, accelerated smoothly, and ran continuously without interruption. Review of recorded engine monitoring data revealed that the rear engine lost total engine power during the engine run-up. Although the reason for the rear engine’s total loss of power during the engine run-up could not be determined, the pilot should have recognized that the rear engine was not operating during the takeoff roll and aborted the takeoff. Placards on the instrument panel and the owner’s manual stated, “Do not initiate single engine take-off,” The continuation of the takeoff in this condition resulted in the airplane’s inability to climb and its subsequent descent and impact with terrain.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot to recognize that the rear engine was not operating during takeoff, which resulted in an attempted single-engine takeoff and the airplane’s subsequent descent and impact with terrain. Contributing to the accident was a loss of rear engine power for reasons that could not be determined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC23LA023
- Event ID
- 20230216106742
- Case number
- ANC23LA023
- 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: 92bd34ca090243bd9e3288272c8cbf9ee4613b4bf1dcce496751803a7af7019a; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:20:37.741Z.