CHI02FA215 · Piper PA-30
Piper PA-30 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Whiteside County Airport - Joseph H Bittorf Field (SQI) to Newport, AR
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI02FA215
- 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
- 1 · 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-30
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-30
- 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
- N8563Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Whiteside County Airport - Joseph H Bittorf Field (SQI), Rock Falls, ILTo Newport, AR
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fuel system › Contamination
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane, owned and piloted by a private pilot, was destroyed during an off airport landing attempt. The pilot reported a loss of engine power while en route. Witnesses reported hearing engine noise when the airplane began to circle over a 40-acre grass field. The engine noise ceased about midpoint through the turn. Ground scarring and wreckage distribution was consistent with a nose down low-speed impact. Nonvolatile memory aboard the airplane showed that the left engine was colder than the right engine and that the pilot may have attempted to start the failed engine. Solid contamination of the fuel system was noted.
Probable cause
The solid fuel system contamination resulting in a loss of engine power. The inadequate emergency procedures, and the airspeed not maintained by the pilot were additional causes.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI02FA215
- Event ID
- 20020805X01300
- Case number
- CHI02FA215
- 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: 2c325496bbff43f693838f43ab0e6558a37fb4b49469e05bd7e7134c30b3e1cc; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:56:33.125Z.