ATL99FA011 · Piper PA-32R-300
Piper PA-32R-300 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Bessemer Airport (EKY) to Lee Gilmer Memorial Airport (GVL)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL99FA011
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 1
- 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-32R-300
- 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
- N8554C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bessemer Airport (EKY), Bessemer, ALTo Lee Gilmer Memorial Airport (GVL), Gainesville, GA
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Fatigue
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Fractured
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While transiting the Atlanta area, the commercial rated pilot reported a sudden loss of engine oil pressure and a subsequent severe vibration to Atlanta Approach Control. Approach Control vectored the flight toward the Dekalb-Peachtree airport for an emergency landing. Due to the loss of power, the pilot was unable to maintain altitude and was force landed on a highway. The pilot left the airplane in the cruise configuration and landed with wheels and flaps retracted. Upon landing, the aircraft slid on the road contacting a Jeep Cherokee, then impacting a Mazda 626. After the impact with the Mazda, the aircraft and the automobile caught fire destroying both. The pilot received serious injuries while the driver of the automobile was fatally injured. During a post crash disassembly of the engine, the number five connecting rod was found fractured through the rod shoulder. A metallurgical examination of the connecting rod was performed, during which the #5 rod was found to have fatigue cracks originating at or near areas of galling. Connecting rods are routinely re-used following inspections for evidence of galling. The engine had operated to within about 60 hours of its recommended time between overhauls, with the broken rod installed.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to the failure of the number five connecting rod assembly as a result of fatigue cracks that were initiated in areas of galling. A factor was the lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL99FA011
- Event ID
- 20001211X11196
- Case number
- ATL99FA011
- 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: b45c9371627f445619f64e587104d122e4689c6a21fdcb4260287e2b6816ef53; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:03:12.604Z.