NYC85LA234 · Piper PA-32-260
Piper PA-32-260 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb
From Dillant Hopkins Airport (EEN) to Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport (BAF)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC85LA234
- 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-32-260
- 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
- N42722
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dillant Hopkins Airport (EEN), Keene, NHTo Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport (BAF), Westfield, MA
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- 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); Utility pole
- 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
- Fluid, oil › Exhaustion
- Lubricating system, oil hose › Failure, total
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of East Swanzey, NH, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT WAS PREFLIGHTED & DETERMINED TO HAVE 10 QTS OF OIL IN THE ENG. WHILE CLIMBING THRU ABOUT 1000 FT MSL AFTER TAKEOFF, THE PROPELLER RPM BEGAN RISING TO THE REDLINE. THE PLT REDUCED POWER & PROCEEDED TO MAKE AN EMERG LANDING. DURING A TURN TOWARD THE ARPT, THE ENG STOPPED OPERATING. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH TREES & CRASHED AS THE PLT WAS ATTEMPTING TO LAND IN AN OPEN FIELD ABOUT 4 MI FROM THE ARPT. A POST CRASH EXAM DISCLOSED A RUPTURED OIL HOSE, PN 63901-26, THAT LED FROM THE OIL PUMP TO THE OIL COOLER. THE HOSE HAD A LIFE EXPECTANCY OF 8 YRS & HAD BEEN MANUFACTURED IN 1974. NO RECORD WAS FOUND TO INDICATE THE HOSE HAD BEEN REPLACED SINCE ITS ORIGINAL INSTALLATION ON THE ENG.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC85LA234
- Event ID
- 20001214X37886
- Case number
- NYC85LA234
- 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: 20f7f41ed09a7e8f763c66b12058853af9565da008c44f67a788a733ed34aa75; retrieved 2026-09-23T15:55:04.750Z.