Cargo Plane Crew Ditched In Lake After Engine Failure

The National Transportation Safety Board has determined that improper maintenance procedures and weight issues were behind the December 4, 2004 downing of a vintage twin-engine Convair 340. The plane went down in a Florida lake after the aircraft's left engine failed.

As Aero-News reported at the time, the two pilots onboard the plane -- who survived the accident, and were later hailed as heroes -- turned the plane back towards Opa-locka Airport after the engine failed. They almost made it... but were forced to ditch just short of the airport, near Aventura, FL.

In its Probable Cause report, the NTSB states improper maintenance of the left engine by company maintenance personnel, including the failure to flush metal from the oil system and failure to properly preserve the engine for storage, resulted in a total failure of the master rod bearing and contamination of the engine oil system with metal.

Not only did that choke the engine... it also prevented the pilots' ability to feather the left propeller, which created additional drag as the pilots attempted to steer the bird back to Opa-locka.

Even if the propeller had functioned normally, however, the plane (shown below, shortly before the accident) may still not have made it back to the airport ... as the NTSB also determined the aircraft was overloaded.

An FAA review of the cargo manifest discovered two different manifest weights -- a manifest obtained at the accident scene that showed a total of 267 pieces of cargo annotated at a total weight of 10,837 lbs., and also a sealed cargo manifest package showed a total of 267 pieces of cargo annotated at a total weight of 14,182 lbs -- which exceeds the maximum payload weight for the Convair 340 by just under 600 pounds.

The plane had been heading to Nassau, FL when the accident occurred.

FMI: Read The NTSB's Full Probable Cause Report