SEA96LA206 · Piper PA-22-108
Piper PA-22-108 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb
From Ashland Municipal Airport Sumner Parker Field (S03) to Hobby Field (77S)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA96LA206
- 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-22-108
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-22
- 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
- N4992Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ashland Municipal Airport Sumner Parker Field (S03), Ashland, ORTo Hobby Field (77S), Creswell, OR
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Exhaust system, clamp › Worn
- Exhaust system, manifold/pipe › Disconnected
- Exhaust system, manifold/pipe › Leak
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot, who was also an A&P mechanic, and a passenger took off on a cross-country flight. During the initial climbout, the pilot smelled something burning and decided to return for landing. White smoke entered the cockpit, followed by black smoke and a small flame under the instrument panel. While on short final approach, the engine lost power, and the pilot could not see outside the airplane due to the smoke in the cabin. The airplane touched down and the occupants escaped without injury. The airplane continued to burn and was destroyed. Examination of the wreckage revealed that a worn exhaust system clamp had come loose. The exhaust pipe became disconnected and imparted hot gasses onto the voltage regulator. The electrical wiring on the regulator subsequently burned and became shorted. An electrical fire and cabin fire followed. The pilot/mechanic had purchased the airplane three months before the accident after an annual inspection. The maintenance log books were not recovered. Verification of the last inspections, as well as compliance with an FAA airworthiness directive regarding exhaust system inspection every 50 hours, could not be confirmed.
Probable cause
inadequate inspection of the airplane by maintenance personnel,and a worn exhaust clamp, which resulted in a disconnected exhaust pipe, exhaust leak, burning and shorting of electrical wiring associated with the voltage regulator, and a cabin fire.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA96LA206
- Event ID
- 20001208X06641
- Case number
- SEA96LA206
- 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: f1e77064e8e0d4bf85055d3fe47c35847b76750e1bc9420ee44ecd87f90b6905; retrieved 2026-09-22T21:18:52.955Z.