A Skymaster Taking Off on One Engine?

The NTSB links a potentially preventable Cessna 337 Skymaster accident in remote Alaska to an inadvertent stall.

Monday, November 27, 2023 at 09:13 AM ET

Verified

An aerial view of mountain tops and glaciers of Harriman Fiord, Alaska, gives a sense of the state's forbidding terrain. [Credit: iStock]

Key Takeaways:

An Alaskan pilot died attempting a single-engine takeoff in a Cessna 337 after the rear engine's starter failed, leading to a crash near the Yukon River.
The accident was attributed to an inadvertent stall, improper landing gear retraction, and the pilot's overconfidence, as identified by the NTSB.
The pilot's strategy of setting an abort point and potentially using a short-field takeoff technique was counterproductive for a single-engine departure, increasing drag and reducing climb performance.
A successful single-engine takeoff, if attempted, would have required using the full runway length, delaying rotation until higher speed, and retracting landing gear only after achieving the optimal blue-line climb speed.

See a mistake? Contact us.

Alaskan flying entails decisions and improvisations that pilots in the contiguous U.S. seldom contemplate. Remote locations, rugged terrain, and harsh weather on one hand, and, on the other, the urgent human needs that airplanes fulfill, create a press-on-regardless mentality. It takes a hardy pilot to survive.

In June 2000, near the Yukon River in the state’s southwestern corner, a Cessna 337 crashed shortly after takeoff, killing one such pilot.