Buying an Aztec, logs don't show a off-field landing / gear collapse, should I worry ?

Digitalpilotnm

Hi, I'm looking at purchasing a PA-23-250 Aztec. Seller says NDH and generally I believe that the current owner is not aware of the entire AC history. In my searching around on the NTSB, AviationDB.com and other places, I've come across a NTSB report that says the AC was involved in a fuel exhaustion accident and the AC landed off-airport with the gear collapsing. NTSB says "Substantial" damage. When reviewing the log books I see an entry 6 months before the accident date and the next entry is 6 or so months after the accident date. Nothing in the logs say anything about repair to the AC, props or engine with respects to the accident.

I paid for a company to pull down all the 337's from the FAA and there isn't anything in the 337's that indicates repair for the accident..

The accident took place in the late 70's and the AC has changed owners multiple time since then.
The has been regular annuals, 50hrs, 100hrs, engine work and other ongoing regular maint activities in the intervening 40 years since the accident.

Should I be worried ?? What should I have the pre-purchase inspection take a closer look at ??
Is the lack of 337's and log entries on the repairs be of concern to the safety of the AC ?
What about to the future value if I wish to sell it later ??

Thank you for any feed back and thoughts.

Scott Sherer

Run, don't walk away from this plane. You should be very worried.

Seneca38173

Generally agree with Scott on this topic. But depending on how this aircraft compares with your other options, it may be worth a little more investigation.

Almost twenty years ago I looked at a year-old Skylane being sold by a dot com founder. Searching the NTSB's brand-new website showed the tail number as having been totaled almost two years earlier. The airplane didn't have so much as a scuff on it, how could it possibly have been totaled? Well, it turned out the owner had purchased an earlier Skylane right after he got his PPL. And like most new pilots he was so excited that he monogrammed everything he owned to match his new registration. So when the first aircraft was totaled he asked the FAA to release the registration, and he ordered an identical new aircraft with the same tail number. And it never occurred to him that this decision might make the plane impossible to sell. In this case the prepurchase inspection was to check the serial number on everything in the plane against the factory build list for aircraft number two, to make sure this wasn't the totaled plane.

NTSB does a great job, as does FAA with their 337 database. But all data regardless of source should be reviewed with some skepticism, to determine if it matches the reality of the situation.

Bob T.

Digitalpilotnm

Hi Bob, great set of points. Thank you. This specific AC has had 3 different tail numbers in its life. The original factory assigned number, one in the middle which appears to be a vanity number, and the current number. Searching on just N numbers you won't find anything for the current tail, or the immediate previous number. You can find somethings based on the original number. Searching based on the S/N yields a bit more information. Going thru the 337's that I got showed one of the previous owners as a Inc (corp) that was registered in TX. Digging deeper into the NTSB data showed that the accident A/C was registered to the TX Inc of the same name that the N number was registered to. IMHO that ties a bow on the association between accident tail and S/N to the TX Corp to the NTSB records..... Also that specific TX Inc was short lived based the lien holder records, bill of sales, and I think they owed a mech shop some $$...

For others that might come across this. www.aviationdb.com was very useful!!

Seneca38173

Sounds like you did some thorough detective work!

griff390

Agree with Scott and others. Your sleuthing uncovered too many unanswered questions. There are many good planes out there with full logs that you can trust your life and your passengers lives with. Move on and don't look back.

Harley Kleemann

Run, Forrest, Run!!!

Scott Sherer

Exactly!!! And I didn't mention that the Aztek is just too old and no factory support. Get a plane still in production like a Seminole or Seneca...