CHI91FA035 · Piper PA-31T2
Piper PA-31T2 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Dane County Regional Truax Field (MSN) to Des Moines International Airport (DSM)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI91FA035
- 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
- 1 · 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-31T2
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N1879W
- Operator
- Century Life of America
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dane County Regional Truax Field (MSN), Madison, WITo Des Moines International Airport (DSM)
- 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vmc), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, improper
- Pilot in command › Propeller feathering, not attained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ON FINAL APPROACH, AFTER BEING CLEARED TO LAND, THE PILOT INFORMED THE CONTROLLER THAT HE MIGHT HAVE TO SHUT DOWN AN ENGINE. HE DECLINED TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY OR REQUEST ASSISTANCE. ON SHORT FINAL, THE AIRCRAFT WAS OBSERVED TO ROLL TO THE LEFT AND DESCENT INTO THE TERRAIN. SUBSEQUENT EXAMINATION REVEALED EVIDENCE THAT THE LEFT ENGINE WAS NOT DEVELOPING POWER, ALTHOUGH THE LEFT PROPELLER WAS NOT FEATHERED. THERE WAS EVIDENCE THAT THE RIGHT ENGINE WAS PRODUCING HIGH POWER DURING IMPACT. NO MECHANICAL DEFICIENCY OF THE LEFT ENGINE OR PROPELLER WAS FOUND.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S IMPROPER EMERGENCY PROCEDURES BY NOT FEATHERING THE LEFT ENGINE AFTER IT LOST POWER AND/OR WAS SHUT DOWN, AND HIS FAILURE TO KEEP THE AIRCRAFT AT OR ABOVE THE MINIMUM CONTROL AIRSPEED (VMC), WHICH RESULTED IN A LOSS OF AIRCRAFT CONTROL. A FACTOR RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WAS: AN UNDETERMINED PROBLEM CONCERNING THE LEFT ENGINE THAT CAUSED IT TO LOSE POWER OR PROMPTED THE PILOT TO SHUT IT DOWN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI91FA035
- Event ID
- 20001212X24589
- Case number
- CHI91FA035
- 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: 0645d573a98cee881bc3bc8aa38a8c703adc8f2bf7b91fe73b8450224a2cc323; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:03:55.406Z.