Bellair Piper PA-32R accident
Piper PA-32R · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Fairbanks International Airport (FAI) to Fort Yukon Airport (FYU)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC99LA043
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-32R
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N1942H
- Operator
- Bellair
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fairbanks International Airport (FAI), AKTo Fort Yukon Airport (FYU), Fort Yukon, AK
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Initial climb
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Engine assembly, connecting rod bolt › Disconnected
- Engine assembly, connecting rod bolt › Undertorqued
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Disconnected
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, overhaul, major, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During initial climb, about 1,500 feet above ground level, as the pilot made his first power reduction, the engine quit. The pilot stated 'it quit so fast I knew I had a problem.' The pilot waited until he cleared trees to extend the landing gear, and landed the airplane on a road. The landing gear did not lock into the down position and collapsed. The right wing struck a snow berm. Inspection revealed that one of the bolts joining the number six connecting rod to the crankshaft had separated. The nut was found in the bottom of the crankcase. Inspection of the bolt and nut at the NTSB metallurgical laboratory did not reveal any preaccident damage to the threads on either the bolt or the nut. The torque on the other 11 connecting rod attachment nuts was checked to be 480 inch-pounds. The engine had been overhauled 241 hours prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to the failure of maintenance personnel to properly torque a connecting rod bolt during an engine overhaul, and the subsequent disconnection of the connecting rod bolt and connecting rod.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC99LA043
- Event ID
- 20001205X00402
- Case number
- ANC99LA043
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5534951b0c1db6c592d44974d947a01bc56aa67495e1baec529b0abb0b7af4d2; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:57:42.146Z.