FTW83LA052 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From F26 · Plano, TX to F26 · Plano, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW83LA052
- 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
- 0
- 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-28-140
- 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
- N6745W
- Operator
- Steve J. Romine · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From F26 · Plano, TXTo F26 · Plano, 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 · 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
- 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
- Engine assembly, valve, intake › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE FLYING AT NIGHT, THE ENGINE BEGAN TO BACK FIRE AND THERE WAS A LOSS OF RPM AND METAL-TO-METAL SOUNDS. THE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO RESTORE THE POWER, BUT TO NO AVAIL. DURING A FORCED LANDING IN DARKNESS, THE PILOT SAW TREES WHEN THE PLANE WAS ABOUT 50 FT AGL, BUT TOO LATE TO AVOID A COLLISION. THE LEFT WING STRUCK A TREE AND WAS SHEARED OFF. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE #4 EXHAUST VALVE, PN.74541, HAD FAILED. THE VALVE HAD ACCUMULATED 1808 HRS SINCE INSTALLATION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW83LA052
- Event ID
- 20020917X04713
- Case number
- FTW83LA052
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1982-12-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: abc1f699712ea76a0d2a230d91426318fce3bfc1fa900d2e3a27ecc69bddb229; retrieved 2026-09-23T23:52:29.863Z.