ATL83FA174 · Piper PA 32RT-300T PA 32RT-30
Piper PA 32RT-300T PA 32RT-30 · Accident: fire en route
From Maury County Airport (MRC) to MRQ · Smyrna, TN
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL83FA174
- 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 32RT-300T PA 32RT-30
- 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
- N22011
- Operator
- Smyrna Avn
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Maury County Airport (MRC), Columbia, TNTo MRQ · Smyrna, TN
- 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
- Fire
- 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
- Exhaust system, manifold/pipe › Loose
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, 100-hour inspection, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT CRASHED IN AN OPEN FIELD AFTER AN IN-FLT FIRE. THE FIRE STARTED WHILE THE ACFT WAS CRUISING. NO EMERGENCY CALLSWERE MADE AND THE ENGINE WHICH WAS THE FIRE SOURCE WAS NOT SHUT DOWN. A REAR SEAT PASSENGER SAID HE TRIED TO OPEN A REARDOOR TO LET OUT SMOKE BUT COULD NOT HOLD THE DOOR OPEN AND PASSED OUT BEFORE THE CRASH LANDING. AFTER THE ACCIDENT THE MANIFOLD WAS FOUND UNBOLTED WITH THE BOLTS MISSING. THIS MANIFOLD HAD BEEN REMOVED ON 2 WEEKS BEFORE DURING MAINTENANCE.NO TORQUE VALUE WAS SPECIFIED ON REPLACING THE MANIFOLD NUTS THE TORQUE VALUE IS 160-180 INCH POUNDS. THE RELEASE WAS NOT SIGNED OFF BY THE MECHANIC BUT BY THE DIRECTOR OF MAINTENANCE WHO WAS A PASSENGER IN THE ACFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL83FA174
- Event ID
- 20001214X42857
- Case number
- ATL83FA174
- 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: 7684fd98b12b35548367b647e5c0b37ae259b698b5b9d70a014ff37add412254; retrieved 2026-09-21T06:51:26.452Z.