MIA01LA062 · Piper PA-23-160
Piper PA-23-160 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Peter Prince Field (2R4) to Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA01LA062
- 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
- Unknown
- 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-23-160
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N2407M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Peter Prince Field (2R4), Milton, FLTo Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE), Fort Lauderdale, FL
- 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 · climb to 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Ignition system, high tension wiring › Chafed
- Ignition system, magneto grounding lead (p-lead) › Frayed
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses heard the engines sputtering as the airplane started its takeoff roll and accelerated on the runway. The flight reached an altitude of about 200 to 300 feet above ground level, when the right engine lost power. The pilot could not maintain altitude, he feathered the right engine, turned the airplane right about 100 degrees, and attempted a forced landing in a pasture. The landing gear was down and locked, the airplane stalled, and impacted the ground right wing and nose low. The investigation revealed sufficient fuel. Engine test runs revealed that both engines ran without discrepancies except for some intermittent roughness and missing during the right engine run. Examination of the right magneto revealed frayed and broken insulation on the "P" lead. Internal examination of left magneto revealed that the advance spark system wire was chaffed through and making some contact with the normal points circuit at the normal point condenser connection. It was determined by those present at the right engine run, that under running conditions, a possible grounding short of the normal points operation could have occurred at this location. At the time of the accident the pilot reported that he had a total flight time in all aircraft of about 2,960 hours. In addition, he reported 96 total hours in muti-engine aircraft, and 41 hours in this make and model.
Probable cause
a loss of right engine power due to chaffed and frayed wiring on the right and left magnetos on the right engine resulting in a forced landing, an inadvertent stall, and subsequent impact with the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA01LA062
- Event ID
- 20010122X00338
- Case number
- MIA01LA062
- 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, coordinates. 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: 7dd55b21b783168c0335f2b34c56f844e09c3639ffa3a56fa4480193ff0bbe4a; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:15:49.863Z.