DEN00IA093 · Piper PA-32R-300
Piper PA-32R-300 · Incident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC) to Rosecrans Memorial Airport (STJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN00IA093
- 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
- Incident
- 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-32R-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N424TP
- Operator
- Brian J. Inskeep · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC), Broomfield, COTo Rosecrans Memorial Airport (STJ), Saint Joseph, MO
- 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 · climb to 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Engine assembly, cylinder › Loose part/bolt/nut/clamp/etc
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During climb to cruise, on an IFR flight plan, in visual conditions, the engine lost all power approximately 10 minutes after takeoff. A forced landing was made in an open field and no damage was incurred during the landing. Examination of the engine provided evidence the number 2 cylinder had separated from the case and had lodged in the cowl. Detailed examination provided evidence that the cylinder hold down studs had failed and were 'necked-down' at the fracture points. The rod bolts then failed and the piston reversed itself and lodged in the case. No signatures of oil starvation or heat distress were found. Examination at an engine overhaul facility provided evidence that none of the hold down stud nuts on the remaining five cylinders had sufficient torque.
Probable cause
Improper installation of cylinders by unknown maintenance personnel who failed to torque the cylinder stud nuts sufficiently.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN00IA093
- Event ID
- 20001212X20976
- Case number
- DEN00IA093
- 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: 494dbeb12fbfe4cead43e0bed36b264770ff4ca1c4c31b77af5471ac6e52de9b; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:52:39.115Z.