BFO94LA038 · Piper PA-32R-300
Piper PA-32R-300 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Duplin County Airport (DPL) to Hartford Brainard Airport (HFD)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO94LA038
- 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
- General aviation
- 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-300
- 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
- N38780
- Operator
- Guardione Vincent & Michael
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Duplin County Airport (DPL), Kenansville, NCTo Hartford Brainard Airport (HFD), Hartford, CT
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 installation, mounting bolt › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLIGHT WAS CRUISING AT 7500' WHEN THE ENGINE STARTED TO RUN ROUGH 12.2 NAUTICAL MILES FROM NORFOLK AIRPORT. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE DID NOT CHANGE THE PROPELLER SETTING UNTIL HE WAS OVERHEAD THE AIRPORT. THEREAFTER THERE WAS A LOUD EXPLOSION AND THE OIL ACCESS DOOR BLEW OPEN AND PIECES OF THE ENGINE EXITED THE AIRPLANE. DURING THE FORCED LANDING ON RUNWAY 23 THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN ON THE GRASSY AREA. EXAMINATION REVEALED THE NO. 2 CYLINDER ASSEMBLY, PISTON AND CONNECTING ROD SEPARATED FROM THE CRANKCASE AT THE CYLINDER HOLD-DOWN STUD AREA. FOR METALLURGICAL EXAMINATION THE HOLD- DOWN STUDS ALONG WITH THE CRANKCASE WERE SENT TO THE NTSB LAB IN WASHINGTON, DC. THE EXAMINATION DISCLOSED FATIGUE CRACKS AND THERE WAS EVIDENCE OF WELDING THROUGH THE CRANKCASE. THE WELDING AREAS WERE SOFTER THAN THE AREAS THAT WERE NOT WELDED.
Probable cause
FATIGUE FAILURE OF THE ENGINE MOUNTING BOLT WHICH RESULTED IN LOSS OF ENGINE POWER AND SUBSEQUENT ON GROUND COLLISION WITH THE TERRAIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO94LA038
- Event ID
- 20001206X00705
- Case number
- BFO94LA038
- 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: fa768561b987b10d0d76f31dcfe9c91ef2405d3ccd4b4433034084f850c40540; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:21:07.063Z.