ATL87LA169 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From 46A · Blairsville, GA to W44 · Asheville, NC
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL87LA169
- 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-28-180
- 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
- N3923R
- Operator
- William H. Haney · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 46A · Blairsville, GATo W44 · Asheville, NC
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Propeller system/accessories, blade › Fatigue
- Propeller system/accessories, blade › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A 17 INCH PORTION OF ONE OF THE PROP BLADES FRACTURED AND SEPARATED FROM THE 76 INCH DIA PROP WHILE THE ACFT WAS AT CRUISE. DURING THE FORCED LANDING THE ACFT STRUCK A FENCE POST. EXAMINATION OF THE PROP REVEALED THE PRESENCE OF FILIFORM CORROSION ACROSS THE BACKS OF BOTH BLADES. METALLURGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE FRACTURE SURFACE REVEALED THAT THE FRACTURE ORIGINATED AT A CORROSION PIT ON THE BLADE BACK. TOTAL TIME OF THE PROP WAS 2225 HRS, THE PROP WAS RECONDITIONED BY THE MFR 1241 HRS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT. THE MFR RECOMMENDS THAT THIS MODEL PROP BE RECONDITIONED EVERY 1000 HRS. THE ORIGINAL RECONDITIONING PROCEDURE SPECIFIED ANODIZING THE PROP AND PAINTING WITH LAQUER AFTER REPAIR. EXAMINATION OF THE PROP INDICATES THAT THIS WAS DONE. THE MFR HAS SINCE REVISED THE RECONDITIONING PROCEDURE TO USE A CHEMICAL CONVERSION COATING INSTEAD. THE MFR SPECIFIES THAT THE PROP BE FREQUENTLY WIPED WITH AN OILY RAG BETWEEN RECONDITIONINGS TO ASSIST IN CORROSION PREVENTION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL87LA169
- Event ID
- 20001213X31097
- Case number
- ATL87LA169
- 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: c7e3742e01b0abb1258b518ebb10b93b133a44b27e21bed6b0e283b666131e8f; retrieved 2026-09-23T13:02:53.696Z.