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MKC90LA112 · Piper PA-32-300

23 May 1990 · Little Rock, AR, United States

Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) on approach

From Marion County Regional Airport (FLP) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
MKC90LA112
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
Instrument Meteorological Cond

Piper PA-32-300

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
N301KK
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Marion County Regional Airport (FLP), Flippin, ARTo 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
Approach · IFR final approach
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

  • Engine assembly, timing gear › Sheared

Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Little Rock, AR, the place the record names. Not the accident site.

NTSB narrative

THE ATR RATED PLT SAID THAT HE WAS ON AN ILS INSTRUMENT APPROACH, IN IFR CONDITIONS, AND HAD JUST INTERCEPTED THE GLIDE SLOPE, WHEN THE ENGINE FAILED. AN EMERGENCY, OFF AIRPORT, LANDING WAS ATTEMPTED ON A LANDFILL WITH ROUGH UNSUITABLE TERRAIN. POST ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE TIMING GEAR HAD SHEARED.

Probable cause

THE FAILURE OF THE POWERPLANT DUE TO A SHEARED TIMING GEAR. CONTRIBUTING FACTORS WERE UNSUITABLE TERRAIN AND RESTRICTED VISION DUE TO FOG.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record MKC90LA112
Event ID
20001212X23242
Case number
MKC90LA112
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: 47362e73b24872fd29c69bac01ce99072fe9b14531706aa9cb0e84232c38f7fe; retrieved 2026-09-23T06:11:44.149Z.