CHI02LA150 · Piper PA-24-250
Piper PA-24-250 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Sparta Community Airport - Hunter Field (SAR) to Eldon Model Airpark (H79)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI02LA150
- 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-24-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N5360P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sparta Community Airport - Hunter Field (SAR), Sparta, ILTo Eldon Model Airpark (H79), Eldon, MO
- 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
- Partial 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, cylinder › Separation
- Owner/builder › Maintenance, overhaul, not performed
- Pilot in command › Precautionary landing, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was substantially damaged when the gear collapsed during a forced landing due to a total loss of engine power. The airplane was directly over the Festus Memorial Airport (FES), Festus, Missouri when the engine started to run rough. The pilot decided to return to the Sparta Community-Hunter Field Airport (SAR), Sparta, Illinois, approximately 35 nautical miles (nm) from FES. The engine experienced a total loss of engine power approximately eight nm from SAR and the pilot executed an emergency landing on a wheat field. The number five cylinder was found to have separated from the engine. The last major overhaul on the engine was conducted on November 1, 1988 and the engine had accumulated 526 hours since the overhaul. The engine manufacturer recommends the engine be overhauled every 12 years even if the engine does not meet the time between overhaul hours.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to a separated cylinder and the failure of the pilot to perform a precautionary landing at the nearest suitable airport when the engine had a partial loss of engine power. The failure of the aircraft owners to perform an engine overhaul and the unsuitable terrain encountered during the emergency landing were contributing factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI02LA150
- Event ID
- 20020606X00824
- Case number
- CHI02LA150
- 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: 3b0b9b35d9c0ac5c341c111fd4d2e45dbeca74fb8e5798cd7be3bfe4f3f71af4; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:53:30.986Z.