DEN93FA099 · Piper PA-32-300
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Lincoln Airport (LNK) to Howard County Airport (M77)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN93FA099
- 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
- 6 · 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-32-300
- 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
- N479KC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lincoln Airport (LNK), Lincoln, NETo Howard County Airport (M77), Nashville, AR
- 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
- Engine accessories, vacuum pump › Failure, total
- Flight/nav instruments, turn and bank indicator › Inoperative
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER BEING CLEARED FOR THE LOCALIZER APPROACH TO THE TEXARKANA AIRPORT, THE PILOT CANCELLED HIS IFR FLIGHT PLAN, AND SAID HE WOULD PROCEED VFR TO NASHVILLE, AR. SHORTLY THEREAFTER, THE PILOT REPORTED HE WAS IN THE CLOUDS AND THAT HE HAD LOST HIS VACUUM, THE TURN COORDINATOR DID NOT WORK, AND HE WAS ON THE VERGE OF VERTIGO. THE CONTROLLER ATTEMPTED TO VECTOR THE PILOT BACK TO TEXARKANA, BUT NOTED HE WAS HAVING DIFFICULTY HOLDING A HEADING. THE AIRPLANE BROKE UP IN FLIGHT. THE LEFT WING SPAR WAS FOUND TWISTED UP AND AFT, THE RIGHT WING SPAR WAS BENT SLIGHTLY DOWN AND AFT, AND THE VERTICAL STABILIZER SPAR WAS BENT AFT. LABORATORY EXAMINATION OF THE VACUUM PUMP REVEALED THE DRIVE SHAFT HAD SHEARED IN TORSION, THE ROTOR HAD BROKEN IN OVERSTRESS, AND THE VANES WERE WORN. IT COULD NOT BE DETERMINED IF THE INOPERATIVE TURN COORDINATOR, WHICH HAD AN ELECTRICAL IMPEDANCE OF 10,000 OHMS, HAD FAILED PRIOR TO OR ON THE ACCIDENT FLIGHT.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE VACUUM PUMP, AND AN INOPERATIVE TURN COORDINATOR. FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE PILOT'S LOSS OF CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE AS A RESULT OF SPATIAL DISORIENTATION, THE PILOT EXCEEDING THE DESIGN STRESS LIMITS OF THE AIRPLANE, AND THE WEATHER CONDITIONS (CLOUDS).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN93FA099
- Event ID
- 20001211X13129
- Case number
- DEN93FA099
- 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: 580f390c715833b43f23fe153a507c1538c0cc9ca36792862e631dc74970e0c0; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:26:01.414Z.