MIA97LA163 · Piper PA-24-180
Piper PA-24-180 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Witham Field (SUA) to Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA97LA163
- 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-24-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N7931P
- Operator
- Arlan Elroy Nuss
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Witham Field (SUA), Stuart, FLTo Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ), Sarasota, 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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 bolt › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight was about 25 miles east of the destination airport when the pilot reported that he 'heard maybe 2 seconds of ticking then complete engine failure. He spent about 10 to 15 seconds trying to stop the engine because he thought the engine would 'tear itself off the aircraft.' The pilot chose to make a forced landing in a field. One wing separated from the airplane when it collided with a tree on the approach, and the airplane traveled about 150 feet before it came to a stop. An engine teardown was performed under the supervision of the FAA, and revealed that all 4 connecting rod caps had come apart from their rods. The rod bolt nuts were found lying on the bottom of the oil pan. The investigation revealed that a mechanic had installed two (2) modified rod caps without the connecting rod assemblies, and without inspecting or servicing prior to installation on the engine. .
Probable cause
a complete loss of engine power due to the separation of the connecting rod bolts, resulting in a forced landing and impact with a tree. A factor in this accident was improper installation of the rod bolts by a mechanic.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA97LA163
- Event ID
- 20001208X07979
- Case number
- MIA97LA163
- 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: d00ad034d62ff56a1a0224b36c8d3fabd29f18ffe295444374d590ed4c74f442; retrieved 2026-09-22T19:42:28.131Z.