NYC94LA174 · Piper PA-24-250
Piper PA-24-250 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Oxford County Regional Airport (81B) to Greenville Municipal Airport (3B1)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC94LA174
- 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-24-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N55GV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Oxford County Regional Airport (81B), Oxford, METo Greenville Municipal Airport (3B1), Greenville, ME
- 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, overhaul, major, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of North Anson, ME, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT AND PASSENGER WERE ON THE SECOND LEG OF A CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT. THIRTY MINUTES INTO THE FLIGHT A VIBRATION BEGAN, FOLLOWED BY OIL SEEPING FROM THE ENGINE COWLING. A FEW SECONDS LATER THE ENGINE FAILED AND OIL COVERED THE AIRPLANE WINDSHIELD. THE PILOT PERFORMED A FORCED LANDING TO AN OPEN FIELD WITH NO FORWARD VISIBILITY DUE TO THE OIL. THE PILOT WAS UNABLE TO STOP THE AIRPLANE BEFORE IT STRUCK TREES AT THE END OF THE FIELD. EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT THE NUMBER TWO CYLINDER HAD SEPARATED FROM THE ENGINE. SEVEN OF THE EIGHT CYLINDER STUDS HAD SHEARED. THE STUD NOT SHEARED WAS INTACT AND UNDAMAGED. AN UPPER STUD WAS RUSTED PARTIALLY ACROSS, WITH THE REMAINDER OF THE STUD SHEARED CLEANLY. THE ENGINE HAD BEEN OVERHAULED 362 TACH HOURS BEFORE THE FAILURE BY A LOCAL ENGINE OVERHAUL FACILITY.
Probable cause
the inadequately installed cylinder mounting stud nuts, by the engine overhaul facility, which resulted in the separation of the number two cylinder and the subsequent forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC94LA174
- Event ID
- 20001206X02339
- Case number
- NYC94LA174
- 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: 792f4ee7de681d4822e8df06ab9b1f63d17e46beafdc4a779bf896b9635b9980; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:29:32.979Z.