FTW98LA404 · Piper PA-28RT-201T PA-28RT-20
Wings of Denver Flying Club Piper PA-28RT-201T PA-28RT-20 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Canyonlands Regional Airport (CNY) to North Las Vegas Airport (VGT)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98LA404
- 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-28RT-201T PA-28RT-20
- 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
- N8252S
- Operator
- Wings of Denver Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Canyonlands Regional Airport (CNY), Moab, UTTo North Las Vegas Airport (VGT), Las Vegas, NV
- 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
- Partial 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, rocker arm/tappet › Loose part/bolt/nut/clamp/etc
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was in cruise flight at 12,500 feet when the pilot noticed the manifold pressure had dropped from 51.8 inches to 25 inches. 'The engine had poor response to throttle movement, and the engine sounded bad when I moved the throttle.' He made the decision not to proceed further due to the remote terrain. As he checked his maps for the nearest airport, the airplane lost altitude. 'The engine did not seem to have much power, and I was about 3,000 feet AGL by this time.' The pilot made a forced landing on a dirt road. During rollout the aircraft struck poles alongside of a cattle guard. According to the salvage company and the FAA inspector who examined the engine, two of the four screws securing the rocker cover on the number 3 cylinder were missing, and oil was leaking out. The rocker cover had a round indention on the outside, and a wear mark on the inside. The exhaust rocker arm studs were also loose. The rear stud was only finger tight. Aluminum was found imbedded in its threads. The front stud was loose, but its nut locking mechanism was still in place.
Probable cause
Loose intake valve rocker arm studs that allowed a loss of compression and a loss of oil. A factor was unsuitable terrain on which to make a forced landing and poles next to a cattle guard.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98LA404
- Event ID
- 20001211X11064
- Case number
- FTW98LA404
- 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: d06c4b107f3e672687f9951f2b04757247762b44f09bda3402ebbc9eb7350828; retrieved 2026-09-22T16:47:07.268Z.