MIA96FA049 · Piper PA-46-310P
Piper PA-46-310P · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Kissimmee Gateway Airport (ISM) to Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA96FA049
- 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-46-310P
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-46
- 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
- N800SJ
- Operator
- William E. Scott · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kissimmee Gateway Airport (ISM), Kissimmee, FLTo Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM), Birmingham, AL
- 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)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 assembly, connecting rod › Failure, total
- Fluid, oil › Starvation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During cruise flight at 14,000 feet mean sea level, the engine failed. The flight was vectored to a nearby airport but the pilot flew toward another airport and crashed in a residential area. Examination of the engine revealed 1.8 quarts of oil were drained and 3 of the 6 connecting rods were failed due to lack of lubrication. Also, detonation damage to the No. 6 cylinder piston was noted and scoring of piston sidewalls was noted at 5 of the 6 cylinders. Evidence of heat discoloration was noted to the connecting rod journals for 3 of the 6 cylinders. The aircraft TIT gauge, which had been miscalibrated by 30 to 40 degrees when the airplane was manufactured, was found to indicate 110 degrees Fahrenheit low near the maximum continuous point of 1,750 degrees. The air/oil separator hose to the scavenge pump was plugged about 10 inches along its length with a substance with a high lead content resulting in the recurring pilot report of excessive oil consumption. Due to the pilot complaint of excessive oil consumption 4 of the 6 cylinders were removed and replaced within the previous 6 months. About 1 month before the accident one of the cylinder pistons was removed and replaced after examination revealed piston sidewall damage consistent with detonation.
Probable cause
oil starvation resulting in connecting rod failure in three of the six cylinders due to lack of lubrication. Contributing to the accident was the failure of the pilot to adhere to a ATC vector toward the nearest airport following engine failure which resulted in the airplane flying past the vectored airport and subsequent collision with trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA96FA049
- Event ID
- 20001207X05047
- Case number
- MIA96FA049
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1995-12-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9a87b32fe28fcdcc7b1e672a68e0ba8965c386cc2499b122a7c236874ee415f8; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:56:26.307Z.