ATL94LA061 · Piper PA-22-160
Piper PA-22-160 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From an unrecorded airport to 49J · Hilton Head, SC
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL94LA061
- 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-22-160
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-22
- 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
- N8647D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 49J · Hilton Head, SC
- 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
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AN ANNUAL INSPECTION OF THE AIRCRAFT WAS COMPLETED ON MARCH 1, 1994. THIS WAS TO BE THE SECOND FLIGHT OF THE AIRCRAFT FOLLOWING THE INSPECTION. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT AFTER DEPARTURE, AT AN ALTITUDE OF APPROXIMATELY 1700 FEET, THE ENGINE STOPPED PRODUCING POWER. AN EMERGENCY LANDING WAS EXECUTED INTO A FRESHLY PLOWED FIELD. DURING THE LANDING ROLL, THE AIRCRAFT NOSED OVER AND WAS SUBSTANTIALLY DAMAGED. INSPECTION OF THE AIRCRAFT ENGINE REVEALED THAT A FOREIGN OBJECT (APPEARED TO BE A PIECE OF ELECTRICAL TAPE) WAS LODGED IN THE CARBURETOR BOWL. THE PILOT/OWNER REPORTED THAT THE MECHANIC, WHO CONDUCTED THE ANNUAL INSPECTION, STATED TO HIM THAT DURING THE POST MAINTENANCE FLIGHT FOLLOWING THE INSPECTION, THE ENGINE SEEMED TO BE MISSING. THE MECHANIC WAS REPORTED AS STATING THAT THERE MIGHT BE SOME TRASH IN THE FUEL LINES OR CARBURETOR, BUT THAT HE WAS UNABLE TO LOCATE THE SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM.
Probable cause
The poor inspection of the aircraft during the annual inspection by maintenance personnel. A factor in the accident was the foreign object found in the carburetor bowl.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL94LA061
- Event ID
- 20001206X00842
- Case number
- ATL94LA061
- 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: d5f2c114c4400dd03b34e2ceab521946b62e83e601d632de200c3dc86932221e; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:16:00.003Z.