ATL96LA045 · Piper PA-32-RT-300 PA-32-RT-3
Piper PA-32-RT-300 PA-32-RT-3 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM) to Charlottesville Albemarle Airport (CHO)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL96LA045
- 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-32-RT-300 PA-32-RT-3
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N2200J
- Operator
- Steven A Walters · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM), Birmingham, ALTo Charlottesville Albemarle Airport (CHO), Charlottesville, VA
- 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
- Airframe, component or system 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
- Miscellaneous, airframe › Separation
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The night instrument instruction flight was cruising at 9,000 feet, VFR on top, when the left half of the top engine cowling ripped off and lodged on the horizontal stabilizer. The airplane was difficult to control, and would not maintain level flight. The instructor and the student diverted to a nearby airport and landed uneventfully. An FAA inspector examined the airplane and stated that the left cowl pin was missing, but it did not fail, having been torn away along with the surrounding cowling material. The manager of the shop where the airplane was repaired stated that he had previously observed worn side latches and pin grommets that allowed the upper cowl pin to slide out of the lower pin hole, which would allow air flow to rip off the upper cowling. There were no FAA malfunction/defect reports of a similar failure, and the manufacturer did not have records of any previous failure.
Probable cause
Inadequate maintenance, and subsequent in-flight separation of the cowling, due to worn cowling components.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL96LA045
- Event ID
- 20001208X05213
- Case number
- ATL96LA045
- 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: 6404802a595c08d7cf1ab84ebbe6997a08fe9624647723961fcf7fc5aec8daa4; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:50:42.266Z.