WPR26LA163 · Piper PA30
Piper PA30 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Murray Field (EKA) to Renton Municipal Airport (RNT)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR26LA163
- 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
- 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
Piper PA30
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA30
- 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
- N741TJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Murray Field (EKA), Eureka, CATo Renton Municipal Airport (RNT), Renton, WA
- Aircraft age
- About 62 years (built 1964)
- 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
- 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 (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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On April 18, 2026, about 1330 Pacific daylight time, a Piper PA-30 Twin Comanche, N741TJ, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Auburn, Washington. The pilot and pilot-rated passenger sustained minor injuries. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight.
According to the pilot, the flight departed Eureka-Murray Field Airport (EKA), Eureka, California, with about 85 gallons of fuel onboard and was destined for Renton Municipal Airport (RNT), Renton, Washington. The airplane was operating in visual meteorological conditions, and the initial portion of the flight was uneventful. The pilot reported that during the descent, about 2 hours and 29 minutes after departure, the airplane began to feel as though it had encountered wind shear or turbulence. Shortly thereafter, the left engine rpm decreased to about 1,900 rpm, and the pilot declared an emergency with air traffic control. The left engine rpm subsequently decreased to about 1,600 rpm, and the right engine rpm also began to decrease. At this time the pilot elected to divert to Auburn Municipal Airport (S50), Auburn, Washington. Both engines then further reduced to about 1,500 rpm, and the airplane was unable to maintain the glidepath to the runway.
The pilot selected a dirt field southwest of the airport for a forced landing. During the approach to the field, she reduced the engine power to idle, extended the flaps, extended the landing gear and maneuvered the airplane toward the selected landing area. The airplane touched down in the dirt field and subsequently impacted a mound of soil resulting in substantial damage to the fuselage.
The pilot reported that they departed with the main fuel tanks selected and switched to the auxiliary tanks about 1 hour into the flight. The pilot reported that she later switched back to the main tanks before the onset of the engine power fluctuations. The pilot-rated passenger reported that he did not recall which tanks were selected when the engine power fluctuations began.
The airplane was recovered to a secure facility for further examination. During recovery about 60 gallons of fuel were drained from the main fuel tanks.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR26LA163
- Event ID
- 20260421202855
- Case number
- WPR26LA163
- 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, coordinates. 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: e647e5c886d9092dadaca5dfdd4a86e33070ab34fc735550cda9686879bab393; retrieved 2026-09-16T21:17:51.938Z.