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:

An experienced Alaskan pilot fatally crashed a Cessna 337 during a single-engine takeoff attempt, driven by a "press-on-regardless" mentality after a rear engine starter failure.
The pilot's strategy of setting an abort point, lifting off at low speed, and prematurely retracting landing gear created excessive drag, severely hindering the aircraft's already limited single-engine climb performance.
The accident illustrates how an unfeathered propeller, landing gear in transit, and insufficient airspeed critically reduce single-engine climb capability, suggesting the crash was preventable with a different, more cautious takeoff procedure.

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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.