ATL01LA095 · Piper PA-32-300
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Kissimmee Gateway Airport (ISM) to Gwinnett County Briscoe Field (LZU)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL01LA095
- 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-32-300
- 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
- N2116G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kissimmee Gateway Airport (ISM), Kissimmee, FLTo Gwinnett County Briscoe Field (LZU), Lawrenceville, GA
- 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)
- 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
- Wire, transmission; Tree(s)
- 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
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, replacement, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Less than two hours into the flight, the engine lost power during cruise. During emergency descent, the airplane struck power lines and a tree, then collided with the ground. Examination of the engine accessory case revealed the idler gear was fractured, and the two attachment holes in the crank case for the idler gear shaft assembly were elongated. Three fractured teeth from the idler gear and two separated bolt heads were recovered. The fracture surface of each gear tooth displayed crack arrest marks and a rough surface consist with high-stress, low-cycle fatigue. The shanks below each separated bolt head were worn to about one-third their original diameter. The engine received a zero-time equivalent overhaul on May 9, 1985, and operated 1371 hours since the overhaul. Textron Lycoming Service Instruction No. 1009AQ states the recommended time between overhaul periods for the engine is 2000 hours. The Lycoming parts catalog for the engine specifies a bolt is required to attach the idler gear shaft assembly at one attachment hole, and a slotted nut and stud are required to attach the idler gear shaft assembly at the other attachment hole.
Probable cause
The improper replacement of an accessory drive component with an unapproved part by maintenance personnel, which resulted in a fatigue fracture of the component and loss of engine power. The airplane subsequently collided with power lines and trees during an emergency landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL01LA095
- Event ID
- 20010830X01821
- Case number
- ATL01LA095
- 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: 9e66e8e6c0a5a234097157262c34fee51f1f8c7c65934383465de8b4bd88739b; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:37:02.469Z.