BFO95LA003 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Blue Grass Airport (LEX)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO95LA003
- 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-28-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N8908J
- Operator
- William A. & Gary T. Morse
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Blue Grass Airport (LEX), Lexington, KY
- 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
- 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
- Partial 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Engine assembly, cylinder › Low compression
- Ignition system, magneto › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING TAKEOFF CLIMB, THE AIRPLANE'S ENGINE LOST PARTIAL POWER. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HE TURNED THE AIRPLANE ONTO THE DOWNWIND LEG OF THE TRAFFIC PATTERN BUT THE AIRPLANE COULD NOT MAINTAIN ALTITUDE. HE STATED HE LANDED THE AIRPLANE IN A CLEARING BELOW THE FLIGHT PATH. AFTER TOUCH DOWN, THE AIRPLANE'S RIGHT WING IMPACTED A TREE AND THE AIRPLANE SPUN RIGHT AND COLLIDED WITH AN EMBANKMENT. POST ACCIDENT EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE REVEALED THE RIGHT MAGNETO'S NYLON GEAR ON THE ROTATING MAGNET HAD FAILED. THE EXAMINATION ALSO REVEALED THE NUMBER THREE CYLINDER HELD ABOUT 10 POUNDS OF COMPRESSION. THE CYLINDER WAS DISMANTLED AND THE VALVES AND SEATS WERE BURNED AND ERODED. THE NUMBER THREE CYLINDER PRIMER LINE WAS BROKEN. AT THE TIME OF TAKEOFF THE AIRPLANE HAD A FULL FUEL LOAD, 2 PASSENGERS, BAGGAGE, AND CARGO ON BOARD. AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT, THE ENGINE HAD ACCUMULATED 235 HOURS SINCE OVERHAUL AND 77 HOURS SINCE ITS LAST ANNUAL INSPECTION. THE AIRFRAME AND ENGINE HAD ACCUMULATED A TOTAL OF 3,389 HOURS.
Probable cause
THE LOSS OF PARTIAL ENGINE POWER DUE TO THE FAILURE OF THE RIGHT MAGNETO'S NYLON GEAR ON THE ROTATING MAGNET AND THE LOW COMPRESSION IN THE NUMBER THREE CYLINDER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO95LA003
- Event ID
- 20001206X02385
- Case number
- BFO95LA003
- 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: d5dd46660bc69e35a5d5b879eec28368f4d691f4c270d5c7ead1e07f205e21d3; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:28:09.555Z.