Grand Canyon - Las Vegas

On February 13, 1995 at 03:36 PM, Grand Canyon - Las Vegas experienced a crash involving Piper PA-31-350 Navajo Chieftain, operated by Las Vegas Airlines, with the event recorded near Grand Canyon-National Park Arizona.

The flight was categorized as charter/taxi (non scheduled revenue flight) and the reported phase was takeoff (climb) at a airport (less than 10 km from airport) crash site.

10 people were known to be on board, 8 fatalities were recorded, 2 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 80.0%.

Crew on board: 1, crew fatalities: 1, passengers on board: 9, passenger fatalities: 7, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is technical failure. The charter flight was on a return tour trip after landing at the Grand Canyon National Park Airport. No fueling or maintenance was performed on the airplane while it sat on the ground for three hours. Shortly after takeoff from runway 21, the pilot transmitted that he had a problem and was declaring an emergency. He then stated '...I'm single engine right now....' The airplane was observed to be 100-200 feet above the terrain at the time. It continued flying for about 6 minutes, turning onto a crosswind, downwind, and then a right base leg for runway 21 before colliding with trees about 2.5 miles northeast of the airport. The airport is located in terrain that slopes upward from south to north and west to east. Winds were gusting to 29 knots. The density altitude was 6,870 feet. Examination of the suspect left engine did not reveal any evidence of failures or malfunctions. The investigation revealed deficiencies in the Federal Aviation Administration's oversight of the airline's maintenance program, and in the airline's extension of the time-in-service interval of the engines. The airline's AAIP does not require a maximum rated power check of the engines as required by the engine manufacturer's service instruction. In addition, the TBO of the engines had been extended from 1,800 to 2,400 hours.

Aircraft reference details include registration N27245, MSN 31-7752121, year of manufacture 1977.

Geospatial coordinates for this crash are approximately 36.3079°, -112.2929°.