FTW01LA068 · Piper PA32-R-301T
Hest Aviation Piper PA32-R-301T · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Skylark Field (ILE) to Perot Field/Fort Worth Alliance Airport (AFW)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW01LA068
- 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 PA32-R-301T
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA32
- 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
- N8355L
- Operator
- Hest Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Skylark Field (ILE), Killeen, TXTo Perot Field/Fort Worth Alliance Airport (AFW), Haslet, TX
- 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 · descent
- 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)
- 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
- Lubricating system › Pressure excessive
- Lubricating system, oil gasket › Leak
- Lubricating system, oil regulator › Blocked(total)
- Unknown › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was approximately 40 minutes into the flight and 4 miles south of the destination airport in a normal descent when the propeller increased to maximum RPM. Shortly thereafter, the oil pressure light illuminated, and the pilot noticed the oil pressure gauge was indicating zero. Subsequently, the engine lost power, and the pilot elected to land in a field approximately 2 miles south of the runway threshold. The airplane touched down on soft ground, separating its landing gear. A post-accident examination of the engine revealed that there was no oil remaining in the engine, the oil filter internal element was collapsed inward, the oil filter converter plate gasket was found separated from the plate and broken in half, and the oil filter bypass valve was found installed improperly. The collapsed oil filter element and blown converter plate gasket are indicative of a cold weather and/or a high RPM start. With cold oil, the oil pressure became excessive due to the faulty bypass valve resulting in collapse of the filter and failure of the oil filter converter plate gasket.
Probable cause
the improper installation of the oil filter bypass valve by an unknown person, which resulted in the loss of engine oil and subsequent loss of total power during a normal descent. A contributing factor to the accident was the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW01LA068
- Event ID
- 20010301X00528
- Case number
- FTW01LA068
- 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: f4744517a980f7a68643ddb58d1c6e8dfe800f58eb64e93f065899303b461c05; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:12:28.037Z.