ATL91LA062 · Piper PA-23-250
Piper PA-23-250 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport (Lovell Field) (CHA) to Venice Municipal Airport (VNC)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL91LA062
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-23-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N6546Y
- Operator
- Krug, Kurt E. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport (Lovell Field) (CHA), Chattanooga, TNTo Venice Municipal Airport (VNC), Venice, FL
- 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
- Electrical system › Undetermined
- Pilot in command › Altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PRIVATE PILOT WAS IN IMC AT 7,000 FEET MSL AND ABOUT 30 MINUTES INTO HIS FLIGHT WHEN HE REPORTED A COMPLETE ELECTRICAL FAILURE. HE BEGAN TO ACCOMPLISH LOST COMM PROCEDURES AND ATTEMPTED TO MAINTAIN HIS LAST ASSIGNED HEADING, AIRSPEED, AND ALTITUDE. HE REPORTED NO PROBLEMS WITH HIS ENGINES, PITOT STATIC SYSTEM OR VACUUM POWERED FLIGHT INSTRUMENTS. HE REMEMBERED THE AIRPLANE STRIKING TREE LIMBS, BUT COULD REMEMBER NOTHING AFTER THAT UNTIL THE AIRPLANE HAD CRASHED ONTO THE TERRAIN. THE ELEVATION AT THE CRASH SITE WAS ABOUT 3,100 FEET MSL. THE PILOT COULD NOT EXPLAIN WHY HE LOST 3,900 FEET OF ALTITUDE PRIOR TO THE CRASH. HE DID NOT REPORT A LIGHTNING STRIKE, AND HE WAS IN IMC UNTIL IMPACT. THE REASON FOR THE LOSS OFF ELECTRICAL POWER WAS NOT DETERMINED.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ALTITUDE DURING CRUISE FLIGHT AFTER LOSS OF ELECTRICAL POWER FOR AN UNDETERMINED REASON.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL91LA062
- Event ID
- 20001212X16542
- Case number
- ATL91LA062
- 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: 24913df72e28221a258c9cb62ac4378134d18ccd1e54a3859bcf145a8b7f471b; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:30:59.331Z.