CHI97LA097 · Piper PA-28-235
Piper PA-28-235 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Morningstar Field (Y76) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI97LA097
- 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-28-235
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N9004W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Morningstar Field (Y76)To not recorded
- 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)
- 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
- Lubricating system › Contamination
- Lubricating system › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Maintenance, inspection, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that about 40 minutes after takeoff the tachometer started surging. The oil pressure gauge dropped to zero and the engine started knocking. The engine seized and the pilot landed the airplane in a soy bean field. During landing rollout the airplane hit some large ruts which collapsed the landing gear. The engine examination indicated the number six connecting rod had failed and knocked a hole in the top of the crankcase. The number three upper piston pin plug had deteriorated and was contaminating the engine with aluminum metal. The oil filter was opened and evidence of aluminum metal contamination was found. The cam shaft and tappets indicated various stages of spalling. Rust was noted inside all cylinder walls and all the connecting rods had surface rust on them. In addition to the separated number six connecting rod, the number four and five connecting rods were blued and not free to move. The pilot reported that the oil filter was not opened during the oil changes to inspect for metal contamination. The pilot was unaware that the engine oil filter indicated that the oil system was contaminated with metal particles.
Probable cause
oil contamination and starvation due to the inadequate maintenance inspection of the pilot/owner. Factors included the deterioration of the piston pin plug, the connecting rod failure, and the unsuitable terrain for landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI97LA097
- Event ID
- 20001208X07677
- Case number
- CHI97LA097
- 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 1997-04-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 22e6510c85401ba25585470f4b4a4c916f920b3d6a3cbf50126bdb6c1da4a5c7; retrieved 2026-09-22T20:02:52.805Z.