NYC00LA082 · Piper PA-28R-200
Piper PA-28R-200 · Accident: loss of engine power during takeoff
From 7MY · Mount Holly, NJ to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC00LA082
- 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-28R-200
- 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
- N4531F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 7MY · Mount Holly, NJTo 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Induction air control, intake manifold › Disconnected
- Unknown › Maintenance, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Mount Holly, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
After departure, at an altitude of 350 feet above the ground, the engine experienced a total power loss, and the pilot performed an emergency landing in a field. Examination of the engine revealed that the #3 cylinder intake manifold tube was disconnected from the engine and lying in the cowling. The bottom portion of the tube appeared to be 'flattened.' The bolts and washers which connect the intake manifold tube to the cylinder were not found, as well as the 'o-ring' which connects the tube to the manifold. The inspector observed 'flakes,' or metal shavings, in the induction box of the intake manifold. The 'flakes' were consistent with the material of the intake manifold tube. The inspector reported the #3 exhaust manifold was broken at the muffler and appeared worn. The accident engine was installed on the accident airplane on September 20, 1999, at which time an annual inspection was also performed. No additional entries were made in either the airframe or the engine logbooks. At the time of the accident, the engine had flown 96 hours since major overhaul, and had accumulated 1,197 total flight hours.
Probable cause
Engine failure due to the disconnection of the intake manifold from the #3 cylinder, as a result of improper maintenance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC00LA082
- Event ID
- 20001212X20560
- Case number
- NYC00LA082
- 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: 34e5c7fd34b5c90c5737e40ecfb29631c9e9fa3e854c6c96db449fa03568e1dd; retrieved 2026-09-22T13:11:34.197Z.