NYC90FA040 · Piper PA-60-602P
Piper PA-60-602P · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Teterboro Airport (TEB) to Reading Regional Airport (Carl A Spaatz Field) (RDG)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC90FA040
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-60-602P
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-60
- 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
- N6894Y
- Operator
- Walter V. Wicker, JR · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Teterboro Airport (TEB), TETERBORO, NJTo Reading Regional Airport (Carl A Spaatz Field) (RDG), Reading, PA
- 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
- Airframe, component or system 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
- Exhaust system, stack › Separation
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, annual inspection, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Frenchtown, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
ON JANUARY 16, 1989, MACHEN NACELLE MOUNTED INDUCTION AIR INTERCOOLERS WERE INSTALLED ON N6894Y. ON DECEMBER 14, 1989, AN ANNUAL INSPECTION WAS PERFORMED, AND A MACHEN SUPERSTAR I-680 KIT WAS INSTALLED. ON DECEMBER 21, 1989, N6894Y WAS AT 6000 FEET WHEN THE PILOT REPORTED A PROBLEM WITH THE RIGHT ENGINE. THE PILOT REPORTED A FIRE IN THE RIGHT ENGINE. A COUPLE OF MINUTES LATER, HE RADIOED HE COULD NOT SHUT DOWN THE RIGHT ENGINE. AT 1034:37 THE PILOT ADVISED HIS 'RIGHT ENGINE JUST TORE OFF' AND THAT HE WAS 'IN A SPIN HEADING DOWN.' THE EXHAUST TAILPIPE OF THE LEFT TURBOCHARGER ON THE RIGHT ENGINE WAS FOUND TO HAVE SEPARATED. METALLURGICAL EXAMINATION REVEALED THE TAILPIPE FAILED DUE TO FATIGUE CRACKING. RECORDS SHOWED THAT PART I OF PIPER SERVICE BULLETIN 920 (ENGINE TAILPIPE INSPECTION) HAD BEEN COMPLETED, WHILE PART II (ADDITION OF FIRE DETECTION SYSTEM) HAD NOT BEEN ACCOMPLISHED DUE TO THE LACK OF AVAILABLE KITS.
Probable cause
THE INADEQUATE MAINTENANCE AND INSPECTION OF THE TURBOCHARGER TAILPIPE EXHAUST STACK ON THE RIGHT ENGINE BY THE MECHANIC(S). THE FAILURE OF THE TAILPIPE PERMITTED HEAT FROM THE EXHAUST TO WEAKEN THE MAIN SPAR OF THE RIGHT WING RESULTING IN A CATASTROPHIC FAILURE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC90FA040
- Event ID
- 20001213X30005
- Case number
- NYC90FA040
- 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: 147f30177a9658bce86ceec201fb42b564d79432c9feb5a0aef7241bc7ff7787; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:03:19.480Z.