MIA97FA031 · Piper PA32-300D
Piper PA32-300D · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Monroe County Airport (M40) to Tampa International Airport (TPA)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA97FA031
- 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
- 1 · 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 PA32-300D
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA32
- 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
- N8603N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Monroe County Airport (M40), Aberdeen, MSTo Tampa International Airport (TPA), Tampa, 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 · 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Ignition system, ignition coil › Failure, total
- Ignition system, magneto › Failure, total
- Terrain condition › None suitable
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight had been airborne 12 minutes when the airplane had a total engine failure. The pilot was given vectors to an airport and was advised that the airport did not have lighting available. About 1 mile from the airport the pilot could not find the airport in the dark and said, 'I'm going for the dark spot....' Radio and radar contact was lost, and there was not further communications with the pilot. The pilot of another airplane on the frequency was vectored to the airport, circled over the airport about 10 to 15 minutes after the last transmission from N8603N, and he attempted to activate the runway lights. The pilot of the other airplane said that after four to five unsuccessful attempts he saw a vehicle arrive at the airport and the lights went 'on.' A witness had observed the airplane at a low altitude west of the airport, and said; '...it was like it was gliding... no sound...and was descending lower and lower...I didn't see anything, I didn't hear the sound of an airplane. The engine or anything....' The engine, the fuel injection system, the fuel found in the airplane, were all examined, and no discrepancies were found. Both magnetos were tested on a test stand, and the tests revealed that both the coils from each magneto were found cracked and leaking. The aircraft's logbooks showed that the last entry and the last annual were performed on 8/1/88. Since 1988, the airplane had flown a total of 30 hours. No ferry permit was issued for this flight, and no maintenance was performed before the flight.
Probable cause
a complete loss of engine power due to a total failure of both magnetos, and the failure of the pilot-in-command to insure that the airplane was airworthy. The dark night and unsuitable terrain were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA97FA031
- Event ID
- 20001208X07201
- Case number
- MIA97FA031
- 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 1996-12-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 14fd2f42de426ee93245541a47640f2c713db6a211c783dc02336f6d90a8400d; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:05:53.482Z.