FTW90LA010 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Cherokee County Airport (JSO) to East Texas Regional Airport (GGG)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW90LA010
- 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-28-140
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N6636W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cherokee County Airport (JSO), Jacksonville, TXTo East Texas Regional Airport (GGG), Longview, TX
- 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
- Engine assembly, valve, exhaust › Fractured
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE EXPERIENCED A HARD LANDING AFTER AN ENGINE FAILURE IN CRUISE FLIGHT AND THE ENSUING FORCED LANDING IN ROUGH TERRAIN. THE ENGINE FAILURE WAS DETERMINED TO BE THE RESULT OF THE FAILURE OF THE #3 EXHAUST VALVE. HOWEVER, THE ROOT CAUSE OF THE VALVE FAILURE COULD NOT BE DETERMINED METALLURGICALLY DUE TO SECONDARY DAMAGE TO ALL OF THE FRACTURE SURFACES. THE PILOT HAD RECENTLY PURCHASED THE AIRPLANE AND THE ENGINE WAS 661 HOURS PAST THE RECOMMENDED OVERHAUL TIME. A SERVICE INSTRUCTION CRITICAL TO THE REPLACEMENT OF THE EXISTING VALVES WITH HEAVIER DUTY VALVES HAD NOT BEEN COMPLIED WITH PRIOR TO THE SALE OR THE ACCIDENT. THE PURCHASER WAS NOT AWARE OF THE SERVICE INSTRUCTION.
Probable cause
THE LOSS OF ENGINE POWER AS A RESULT OF A FAILURE OF THE NUMBER 3 EXHAUST VALVE DUE TO UNDETERMINED REASONS. FACTORS INVOLVED IN THE ACCIDENT WERE THE PREVIOUS OWNER'S DELAY IN OVERHAULING THE ENGINE AND HIS FAILURE TO ADHERE TO THE MANUFACTURER'S RECOMMENDED MAINTENANCE INSTRUCTIONS AND ROUGH TERRAIN IN THE TOUCHDOWN AREA OF THE EMERGENCY LANDING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW90LA010
- Event ID
- 20001213X29608
- Case number
- FTW90LA010
- 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: 7dad5b7be3219ac96c03a23ce336bd297bddd6087e3e0ac0ff1c8c9f8c108479; retrieved 2026-09-22T00:01:01.467Z.