MIA95FA223 · Piper PA-34-200T
Piper PA-34-200T · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Dalton Municipal Airport (DNN) to Gainesville Regional Airport (GNV)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA95FA223
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-34-200T
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-34
- 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
- N1543X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dalton Municipal Airport (DNN), GATo Gainesville Regional Airport (GNV), Gainesville, FL
- 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 · climb to 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Dalton, GA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
During climb to cruise, the left engine lost power due to exhaust and intake valve failures of the No.6 cylinder. The pilot feathered the left propeller and turned back to the departure airport. During descent, the right engine lost power. The airplane then entered a steep descent and crashed in a wooded area. There was a massive postcrash fire. Examination of the fuel selector valves revealed the left engine fuel selector valve was in the 'on' position, and the right engine fuel selector valve was in the 'off' position. Investigation of valve failure in the left engine showed extensive rocker arm wear.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper action by turning off the right engine fuel selector valve after the left engine had failed, and her failure to maintain control of the airplane after losing power in both engines. Factors relating to the accident were: a worn rocker arm assembly and subsequent valve failure of the left engine's #6 cylinder, which resulted in a loss of power in that engine.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA95FA223
- Event ID
- 20001207X04539
- Case number
- MIA95FA223
- 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: abb3a358af68a48982646abb6c3699006c08879536439be3ecf2647a98b50ff3; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:37:02.317Z.