NYC00LA125 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Dare County Regional Airport (MQI) to Delaware Airpark (33N)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC00LA125
- 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
Beech A36
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N28JP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dare County Regional Airport (MQI), Manteo, NCTo Delaware Airpark (33N), Dover, DE
- 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
- Miscellaneous, engine pre-ignition and/or detonation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Approximately 50 minutes after departure, during a cross-country flight, the airplane's engine began to run rough. The pilot noticed the oil pressure had decreased, he heard a loud 'bang', and the engine experienced a total loss of engine power. He was unable to maintain the airplane's altitude, and performed a forced landing to a field. Examination of the #2 piston revealed a hole from detonation on the side of the piston, which extended into the interior. Advisory Circular AC65-12A stated that detonation can burn a hole completely through a piston. Examination of the crankshaft revealed a lack of lubrication and severe overheating. The #5 and #6 connected rods had separated from the crankshaft, and their bearings were completely disintegrated.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power caused by detonation of the #2 piston.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC00LA125
- Event ID
- 20001212X20907
- Case number
- NYC00LA125
- 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: 355e3772ef949a741c9b7fbb1e853a682c7a99d53ddb2fa19cf7ed9d41c01f16; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:39:57.564Z.