NYC99LA172 · Piper PA-22-108
Piper PA-22-108 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Hampton Roads Executive Airport (PVG) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC99LA172
- 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-22-108
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-22
- 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
- N4595Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hampton Roads Executive Airport (PVG), HAMPTON ROADS, VATo 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)
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Isle of Wight, VA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that the airplane began to vibrate slightly while in cruise flight, and he decided to return to the airport. The engine then began to shake violently, and the pilot performed a forced landing. The airplane landed short, nosed over, and came to rest inverted. Examination of the wreckage revealed that the left rear cylinder on the engine had separated from it's mounting flange. The engine had accumulated about 13 hours since overhaul, when all four cylinders were replaced on the engine with chromed cylinders purchased from an outside source, then overhauled by the engine overhaul facility. During the metallurgical examination of the failed cylinder, a fatigue origin was found near the bottom of the fin radius, between the tenth and eleventh fins from the inboard end of the cylinder barrel. Severe corrosion attack was also observed on the fin immediately adjacent to the fatigue origin location. Corrosion damage was also noted in the radius, including a corrosion pit from which the crack arrest features appeared to emanate. The corrosion pit was filled with a non-conductive substance.
Probable cause
The improper visual inspection of overhauled engine components by maintenance personnel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC99LA172
- Event ID
- 20001212X19341
- Case number
- NYC99LA172
- 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: 27c1a9f24292263dbd428d2f411a645a43b5e37f19a115015c94b1719b721ce8; retrieved 2026-09-22T14:33:34.821Z.