DEN88FA037 · Piper PA-28-161
Alpine Aviation Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) to PUV · Provo, UT
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN88FA037
- 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
- 2 · 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-28-161
- 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
- N2138J
- Operator
- Alpine Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), Salt Lake City, UTTo PUV · Provo, UT
- 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)
- 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
- Wire, transmission
- 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
- Accessory drive assembly, drive gear › Disengaged
- Accessory drive assembly, drive gear › Loose
- Maintenance, installation › Improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DRG A NGT FLT TO REPOSITION THE ACFT TO ITS HOME BASE, THE ENG LOST PWR AS THE PLT WAS CRUISING AT ABOUT 1000' AGL. HE TRANSMITTED A 'MAYDAY' CALL & MANEUVERED THE ACFT TO MAKE A FORCED LNDG ON AN INTERSTATE HIWAY. WHILE APCHG TO LND, THE ACFT STRUCK THE TOP (GROUND) WIRE OF A PWR LINE THAT CROSSED THE HIWAY IN THAT AREA. THE ACFT THEN FLIPPED OVER & FELL ON THE NORTHBOUND LANES OF THE HIWAY. A TEAR DOWN OF THE ENG REVEALED THE ACCESSORY DRIVE GEAR ATTACHING BOLT (PN: STD-847) HAD BACKED OUT, ALLOWING THE DRIVE GEAR TO LOOSEN. THIS RESULTED IN A LOSS OF SYNCHRONIZATION OF VALVE & IGNITION TIMING. AN INCORRECTLY SIZED HELI-COIL, USED TO REPAIR THE GEAR ATTACHING THREADS, WAS FOUND INSTALLED IN THE CRANKSHAFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN88FA037
- Event ID
- 20001213X32684
- Case number
- DEN88FA037
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1987-12-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4e177732ebbfd0e86fe345003f5509f4abc54d83bb3a2374ebe8d74c2304ad47; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:52:24.648Z.