Blue Ridge Air Piper PA-32RT-300 PA-32RT-30 accident
Piper PA-32RT-300 PA-32RT-30 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Charlottesville Albemarle Airport (CHO) to Moore County Airport (SOP)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC98LA015
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
- N2200J
- Operator
- Blue Ridge Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Charlottesville Albemarle Airport (CHO), Charlottesville, VATo Moore County Airport (SOP), Southern Pines, NC
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 › Fatigue
- Powerplant controls › Improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot leveled off at his cruise altitude of 6,500 feet, the engine started to vibrate, and oil was observed leaking from the engine cowling. The vibration and oil flow increased in intensity, and the pilot shut the engine off, and performed a forced landing to a field. During the ground roll, the airplane struck a berm about 2 feet high. Examination of the engine revealed the number 2 connecting rod had failed between the wrist pin hole and crankshaft yoke. Metallurgical examination of the fracture found fatigue, and evidence of gauling in the area of the connecting rod bolt holes. Gauling was also found on the number 6 connecting rod bolt holes. According engine manufacturer, gauling could occur from high loading such as produced during overspeed or excessive manifold pressure operation. The operator reported the airplane was flown by company pilots on charter flights, and was also a rental airplane.
Probable cause
improper engine operation by undetermined person(s) that initiated gauling on the connecting rod, and led to its subsequent failure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC98LA015
- Event ID
- 20001208X09109
- Case number
- NYC98LA015
- 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: f75526743f140a3cf80f7b19564576c8c46c451933a4d38f3766a4f964e872ca; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:20:05.600Z.