ATL88FA110 · Piper PA-32R-300
Card Wings Flight Service Piper PA-32R-300 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From 29J · Rock Hill, SC to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL88FA110
- 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-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
- N8727E
- Operator
- Card Wings Flight Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 29J · Rock Hill, SCTo 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, inadequate
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
- Fluid, oil › Loss, total
- Lubricating system, oil line › Loose
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Rock Hill, SC, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT AND A CERTIFICATED PILOT/PAX DEPARTED THE ROCK HILL APT FOR A LOCAL MAINT TEST FLT FOLLOWING AN ENGINE OVERHAUL AND INSTALLATION. ABOUT 10 MINUTES INTO THE FLT, THE ENGINE OIL PRESSURE DROPPED TO ZERO AND A COMPLETE LOSS OF POWER FOLLOWED. THE PLT RADIOED THE INFORMATION TO THE DEPARTURE ARPT AND ATTEMPTED A FORCED LANDING IN A LARGE PASTURE WITH FENCES. THE FIRST TOUCHDOWN WAS ABOUT 1746 FT PAST A TREE LINE AT THE EDGE OF THE FIELD. THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH AN EARTH MOUND 961 FT PAST THE FIRST TOUCHDOWN POINT, ROLLED INVERTED AND COLLIDED WITH THE TERRAIN 300 FT PAST THE EARTH MOUND. TOTAL DISTANCE BETWEEN THE TREE LINE AT THE EDGE OF THE FIELDS AND THE STOPPING POINT WAS ABOUT 3,091 FT. THE LATTER PORTION OF THE PATH WAS MORE STEEPLY DOWNSLOPING THAN THE FIRST 2,150 FT. POST ACC EXAM REVEALED AN OIL LINE WHICH SHOWED EVIDENCE OF NOT HAVING BEEN PROPERLY CONNECTED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL88FA110
- Event ID
- 20001213X25191
- Case number
- ATL88FA110
- 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: 336d66495ff286a50b2bbd220f5bea6cb2d102672fe7e8e316f5fd76549741df; retrieved 2026-09-21T16:13:07.847Z.