MIA97LA243 · Piper PA-32RT-300 PA-32RT-30
Piper PA-32RT-300 PA-32RT-30 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU) to W66 · WARRINGTON, VA
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA97LA243
- 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-32RT-300 PA-32RT-30
- 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
- N9385C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU), Raleigh, NCTo W66 · WARRINGTON, 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
- 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
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Failure
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During cruise flight, the pilot felt a vibration, which continued. Subsequently, oil began covering the windshield, and the engine lost power. The flight was vectored toward a nearby airport, but the pilot did not communicate his intentions of a forced landing over the correct UNICOM frequency. Due to an airplane ahead, he landed hard on the displaced portion of the runway. Several holes were noted in the crankcase near the Nos. 1 and 4 cylinders. Examination of the engine revealed that the connecting rods for the Nos. 1 and 4 cylinders had failed. Metallurgical examination of the failed components revealed high stress low cycle fatigue on the No. 4 rod. Also, galling was noted in critical areas on the Nos. 1, 2, and 4 connecting rods and/or caps. A service bulletin indicated that galling in critical areas could cause failure of connecting rods, and galling could occur as a result of high loading such as during engine overspeed or operation with excessive manifold pressure. The engine had been overhauled by the manufacturer and had accumulated about 1,252 hours.
Probable cause
fatigue failure of the No.4 connecting rod in an area where galling had occurred, which resulted in loss of engine power and a forced landing. Related factors were: the pilot's lack of communication by failing to select the proper UNICOM frequency; and his failure or inability to flare the airplane during the forced landing, while avoiding another airplane that was landing on the same runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA97LA243
- Event ID
- 20001208X08898
- Case number
- MIA97LA243
- 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: 5fd162ac92dac21f57501bb857772682a544150d4ea1f8ae5085d0646872d7b1; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:38:31.957Z.