FTW93FA105 · Piper PA-28R-201T PA-28R-201
Piper PA-28R-201T PA-28R-201 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) to Las Cruces International Airport (LRU)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW93FA105
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28R-201T PA-28R-201
- 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
- N47402
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ), Albuquerque, NMTo Las Cruces International Airport (LRU), Las Cruces, NM
- 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
- Airframe, component or system 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
- Vacuum system › Failure, total
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Radium Springs, NM, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
AT 10,000 FT, THE PILOT REPORTED THAT SHE WAS IN LIGHT SNOW. SUBSEQUENTLY, SHE REPORTED THAT SHE HAD LOST THE ATTITUDE INDICATOR, WAS IN IMC, AND '...WE'RE IN TROUBLE.' NO FURTHER TRANSMISSIONS WERE RECEIVED. THE AIRPLANE SUBSEQUENTLY BROKE UP IN FLIGHT. MICROSCOPIC EXAMINATION OF THE WARNING LIGHT BULB FOR THE VACUUM SYSTEM REVEALED A STRETCHED FILAMENT. PITTING AND SCORING WAS NOTED IN THE BASE OF THE VACUUM PUMP CASE. ENERGY DISPERSIVE X-RAY SPECTROSCOPY PRODUCED SPECTRA OF PARTICLES FOUND IN THE VACUUM PUMP REGULATOR VALVE SIMILAR TO THAT OF THE VACUUM PUMP ROTOR AND VANE FRAGMENTS. WITH 2.2 INCHES OF MERCURY DIFFERENTIAL AIR PRESSURE, THE NORMAL TEST PRESSURE, THE ROTOR OF THE ATTITUDE GYRO ASSEMBLY STARTED, BUT THE ROTOR BEARINGS WERE VERY ROUGH. THIS WAS THE PILOT'S FIRST KNOWN FLIGHT IN ACTUAL INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS.
Probable cause
A TOTAL FAILURE OF THE AIRPLANE'S VACUUM SYSTEM. FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE DARK NIGHT, SNOW, THE PILOT'S LOSS OF AIRCRAFT CONTROL, AND THE PILOT'S LACK OF EXPERIENCE IN FLYING IN ACTUAL INTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW93FA105
- Event ID
- 20001211X11974
- Case number
- FTW93FA105
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1993-03-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7fd93e800e9c73b7f00c307faf0f942f5ad1c0bc1afeff959c01eefee8fde0fd; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:39:45.030Z.