CHI03LA043 · Piper PA-28-235
Piper PA-28-235 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Oakland County International Airport (PTK) to TFF · Monroe, MI
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI03LA043
- 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-28-235
- 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
- N8555W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Oakland County International Airport (PTK), Pontiac, MITo TFF · Monroe, MI
- 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, valve, exhaust › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The nose gear collapsed during an off airport forced landing following a loss of engine power. The pilot reported that while en route to his destination, the engine power dropped to 1,300 rpm. He stated he applied carburetor heat, turned on the auxiliary fuel pump, and switched fuel tanks to no avail. The pilot reported that the passenger checked the engine instruments and all indications were normal. The pilot contacted the Willow Run Air Traffic Control Tower and informed them of the situation, stating that he was going to land at their airport. After turning toward the airport, the pilot determined he was not going be able to reach the airport, so he pilot selected a plowed field in which to land. The nose gear collapsed during the landing and the airplane came to rest on the engine cowling and main landing gear. Examination of the engine revealed the #2 cylinder exhaust valve was broken off and a piece of the #2 cylinder was missing. Portions of the exhaust valve and valve stem were recovered from the engine. Visual examination revealed the fractured surfaces were deformed and obscured by impact damage to such a degree that the failure mode could not be determined.
Probable cause
The #2 cylinder exhaust valve failed due to undetermined reasons. A factor associated with the accident was the soft terrain encountered during the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI03LA043
- Event ID
- 20021226X05634
- Case number
- CHI03LA043
- 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: 202519b321a28060d2a7b5b86b44d8b8f04385b94dff583743afeefcbebdcaeb; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:47:23.596Z.