NYC91LA185 · Piper PA-23-250
Piper PA-23-250 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Dillant Hopkins Airport (EEN) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC91LA185
- 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-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
- N54819
- Operator
- Charles O'Donnell
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dillant Hopkins Airport (EEN), Keene, NHTo not recorded
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel starvation; Tree(s)
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Fuel system, line fitting › Failure, total
- Fuel system, line fitting › Worn
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Templeton, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DURING A DAY CROSS-COUNTRY FLIGHT THE AIRPLANE EXPERIENCED A COMPLETE LOSS OF LEFT ENGINE POWER. NORMAL RESTART PROCEDURES WHICH INCLUDED A SELECTION OF THE CROSS-FEED POSITION FAILED TO RESTORE POWER TO THE LEFT ENGINE. THE PILOT DIVERTED TO AN EN ROUTE AIRPORT FOR A SINGLE ENGINE APPROACH AND LANDING. AS THE PILOT INITIATED A SINGLE ENGINE GO-AROUND, A COMPLETE POWER LOSS OCCURRED TO THE RIGHT ENGINE. THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED TREES AND TERRAIN OFF THE DEPARTURE END OF THE RUNWAY. INVESTIGATION REVEALED A BROKEN FUEL FITTING ON THE LEFT FUEL SELECTOR UNIT AND WORN THREADS ON A FUEL FITTING ON THE RIGHT ENGINE. THIS RESULTED IN THE FUEL STARVATION POWER LOSS TO BOTH ENGINES.
Probable cause
FUEL STARVATION INDUCED POWER LOSS ON FIRST THE LEFT ENGINE DUE TO A FAILED FUEL FITTING AND THEN THE RIGHT ENGINE DUE TO A WORN FUEL FITTING. A FACTOR WAS THE LACK OF SUITABLE TERRAIN FOR THE FORCED LANDING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC91LA185
- Event ID
- 20001212X17674
- Case number
- NYC91LA185
- 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: e5f76e00e6604f04f7ce13546c828a9e9b3e3f57acc8350461e7da2673991980; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:54:52.984Z.