Wasn't my story but still a good one. A guy I know bagged the left engine just after pulling up the gear on a 200 series King Air. Come to find out one of the technicians overhauling the engine dropped an ink pen inside the hot section.

Pilot described 'catastrophic engine failure' in Molokai crash - Hawaii News - Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Another Pt-6 in Hawaii failed-1 death.

The Martinaire one I previously mentioned in November turned out to be bird ingestion. Apparently enough made it through the FOD screen to take out a compressor blade.

I was surprised to hear of as many failures as people here are mentioning. My personal experience with the engine isn't too impressive (700 hours), but I haven't heard of any failures in the training command here over the past two years, and we're collectively flying about 45,000 hours per year.

Hit a deer on takeoff with the prop. That pretty much took care of it.

Used to be you couldn't operate scheduled service single engine beyond gliding distance of shore. The FAA changed the rules in a triumph of money over safety. The PT-6 is reliable but they do fail and airplanes do crash because of it semi-regularly. Acceptable losses, say the insurance companies.

Don't remember is someone mentioned the Pilatus that ditched off Russia in 2001. N660NR.

It still is that way, and not just scheduled either, any 135 SE with passengers on board.

You're right, I had it confused with the IFR rules which they did change.

Yeah, we've had a pretty good couple of years (knock on wood). But unlike the King Air we have a handle to pull if crap hits the fan. I've been pretty impressed with the PT-6 in my T-6 experience and MC-12 (BE-350) experience. Been a great engine.

I have had one real failure, and 2 precautionary shutdowns in my 8k hours of PT-6. 1. bad bearing overtemp, chewed up hot section 2.blown prop seal/smoke in aircraft precautionary ie: still made power, but for how long, 3. low oil pressure/leak shutdown at 60 psi as per mfr's instructions.

I Love them, but you would have to pay me an awful lot to fly a single again.