NYC01LA194 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Waterbury Oxford Airport (OXC) to Orange County Airport (MGJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC01LA194
- 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-28-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N55205
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Waterbury Oxford Airport (OXC), Oxford, CTTo Orange County Airport (MGJ), Montgomery, NY
- 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
- 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
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was in level flight, about 3,000 feet, with the engine operating at 2,350 rpm. It began to sound louder than normal to the student pilot, then the oil pressure dropped, and smoke began to emanate from the engine. The student pilot reduced engine power to idle and attempted to land the airplane in a field, but overshot it and struck trees. Post-flight examination of the engine revealed seven quarts of oil showing on the oil dipstick, and no broken or loose oil lines or filter. The engine had a hole in the crankcase in the vicinity of the #2 cylinder. An engine teardown revealed that the #2 connecting rod had separated from the crankshaft and had outwardly bent the cylinder skirt. The connecting rod that contacted the crankshaft journal exhibited lateral scaring, heat signature, and peening. The piston, by means of the connecting rod, was moved the length of the cylinder barrel and the stroke was limited by the destruction of the cylinder skirt. The number two crankshaft journal displayed the same characteristics as the end of the connecting rod. The #1 cylinder connecting rod was separated from the piston, and bent approximately 10 degrees at the base of the pin hole with the piston pin still in place. The top pf the connecting rod displayed peen marks, as did the bottom interior of the piston. The piston could not be moved from the top of the cylinder. The connecting rod was loose on the journal with one hold-down nut missing. The opposite hold down bolt and nut were tight. The connecting rod exhibited rotational scratching, with no heat signature. Three of four connecting rod hold down nuts were recovered. The lipped surfaces of two of the nuts displayed no rotational scratch marks associate with contacting other metal surfaces; the third nut had such rotational scarring. The engine had 6,036 hours of operation and 456 hours since overhaul.
Probable cause
Separation of the number two connecting rod for reasons undetermined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC01LA194
- Event ID
- 20010810X01657
- Case number
- NYC01LA194
- 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: 157a71c4a877dc21df4a2820944bc7311cb7e7da630906143bc282313f25abae; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:53:09.202Z.