Prompt Air Piper PA-32R-300 accident
Piper PA-32R-300 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW) to Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport (DET)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI87LA217
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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-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
- N8799E
- Operator
- Prompt Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW), Chicago, ILTo Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport (DET), Detroit, MI
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
TKOF AND CLIMB TO 7000 FT WERE MADE ON THE LEFT FUEL TANK. SHORTLY AFTER LVL-OFF, THE PLT SWITCHED TO THE RT TANK AND STAYED ON IT DURING THE INITIAL CRUISE. THE PLT THEN SWITCHED BACK TO LEFT TANK AND ABT 10 MIN LATER THE ENG BEGAN TO LOSE PWR. READINGS WERE NORMAL. THE PLT CONTACTED CLEVELAND CTR, DECLARED AN EMERGENCY, SWITCHED TO 7700 ON THE TRANSPONDER, SET UP A DESCENT, AND RECEIVED INSTRUCTIONS TO THE NEAREST ARPT. THE ACFT DESCENDED INTO UNDERCAST AND STRUCK THE TOPS OF TREES WITH ITS LEFT WING. IT THEN ROLLED LEFT, STRUCK THE GRD AND CAME TO REST INVERTED. NO EVIDENCE WAS FOUND IN THE EXAM OF THE ENG OR FUEL SYSTEM THAT WOULD EXPLAIN THE PARTIAL LOSS OF PWR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI87LA217
- Event ID
- 20001213X32042
- Case number
- CHI87LA217
- 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: 913bef72a00db7e32aacaeec6bdbc4445473fc480d51fd98c0b29ff325c9d67d; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:37:20.413Z.