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

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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:

A Cessna 337 pilot crashed during a single-engine takeoff attempt in Alaska after the rear engine's starter failed, influenced by a "press-on-regardless" mentality in challenging conditions.
Key contributing factors included the pilot's decision to establish a short-field abort point, rotate at low airspeed, and prematurely retract the landing gear, which collectively created excessive drag from an unfeathered propeller and gear in transit.
The author suggests the accident was preventable, believing the aircraft could have successfully taken off if the pilot had used the full runway length, delayed gear retraction, and accelerated to the optimal single-engine climb speed before lifting off.

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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.