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ERA26LA137 · Pilatus Britten-Norman Limited BN-2B-27

22 Feb 2026 · Isla de Culebra, PR, United States Possible conflict

Pilatus Britten-Norman Limited BN-2B-27 · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) while taxiing

From José Aponte de la Torre Airport (RVR) to an unrecorded destination

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Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.

Event

NTSB case
ERA26LA137
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
Ongoing
API-reported fatalities
0 · all aircraft and ground
Ground fatalities
0
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

Pilatus Britten-Norman Limited BN-2B-27

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
N865VL
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From José Aponte de la Torre Airport (RVR), Ceiba, PRTo not recorded
Aircraft age
About 39 years (built 1987)
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
Taxi · from runway
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
System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
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

No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

On February 22, 2026, at 0915 Atlantic standard time, a Pilatus Brittan-Norman Limited, BN-2B-27 Islander, N865VL, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident at Benjamin Rivera Noriega Airport (CPX), Isla de Culebra, Puerto Rico. The airline transport pilot and eight passengers were not injured. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 135 air taxi flight. According to the operator, the flight departed from Jose Aponte de la Torre Airport (RVR), Ceiba, Puerto Rico, and was destined for CPX. Following an uneventful landing at CPX, the airplane exited the runway and entered the taxiway. The pilot reported that he was taxiing toward the terminal and performed a second right turn when the airplane experienced a loss of right braking action. The airplane then veered to the left and departed the paved surface of the taxiway onto the adjacent grass area, where it traversed over a drain overflow. The pilot regained control of the airplane and continued to the terminal where the passengers deplaned. The pilot assessed that the airplane sustained minor damage and subsequently flew the airplane to the operator’s maintenance facility for further inspection. During a follow up inspection, maintenance personnel observed that the left wing in the main landing gear well was buckled. Additionally, the right brake caliper seal was leaking. The airplane was retained for further examination.

Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record ERA26LA137
Event ID
20260305202605
Case number
ERA26LA137
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: fe9dee3b9a73770ab092643cc1c942d98a5877f3ce62d73071258c0ca211f072; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:55:33.860Z.