Accident
At 1702, Scenic Airlines Flight 306, a Cessna 404 operating under visual flight rules as a commuter flight to Phoenix, crashed approximately three miles south of runway 21 after departing from Grand Canyon National Park Airport. The aircraft traveled through a densely wooded area while maintaining a magnetic heading of 165 degrees. It came to rest upright about 230 feet from the initial point of contact with trees. The impact forces and an intense fire destroyed the aircraft.
Casualties
The accident resulted in the deaths of the pilot and six of the seven passengers. One passenger initially survived but succumbed to thermal injuries five days later.
Probable Cause
According to the official investigation, the probable cause was a substantial loss of power from the left engine at a critical point in the takeoff and the pilot's failure to establish a minimum drag configuration, which degraded the marginal single-engine climb performance of the aircraft. The power loss was attributed to the seizure of the turbocharger following a progressive failure of the turbine wheel blades. This failure was initiated by foreign object ingestion that had occurred prior to the flight and was not detected during maintenance performed on the engine four days before the accident.