Air Continental Piper PA-60-600 incident
Piper PA-60-600 · Incident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Buffalo Niagara International Airport (BUF) to Teterboro Airport (TEB)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC86IA231
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-60-600
- 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
- N90349
- Operator
- Air Continental
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Buffalo Niagara International Airport (BUF), Buffalo, NYTo Teterboro Airport (TEB), TETERBORO, NJ
- 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)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Engine assembly › Failure, partial
- Engine assembly, cylinder › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT STATED THAT AFTER LEVELING OFF AT 9000 FT MSL. HE HEARD A POP FOLLOWED BY AN EXPLOSION IN THE LEFT ENG. THE ENTIRE LEFT SIDE OF THE UPPER COWLING WAS PROTRUDING INTO THE AIRSTREAM WHICH CAUSED THE AIRCRAFT TO ROLL TO THE RIGHT. THE PILOT HAD TO USE FULL RIGHT RUDDER & HALF LEFT AILERON DEFLECTION TO MAINTAIN CONTROL. UNABLE TO MAINTAIN ALT AT BLUE LINE, AN EMERGENCY WAS DECLARED & RADAR VECTORS REQUESTED TO NEAREST AIRPORT. WHEN THE AIRPORT PERIMETER WAS CROSSED THE ACFT WAS LESS THAN 10 FT ABOVE THE GROUND. PILOT ELECTED TO LAND GEAR UP ON THE GRASS BETWEEN THE RUNWAY & TAXIWAY. INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE EXPLOSION WAS CAUSED BY A FAILED CYLINDER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC86IA231
- Event ID
- 20001213X34860
- Case number
- NYC86IA231
- 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: a97b12d4a9891ce531a9e98f44b13090115e5eb781afb77256a9ad9df290b0a0; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:55:19.092Z.