IAD03FA024 · Piper PA-32R-301T
Piper PA-32R-301T · Accident: fire en route
From Rutland - Southern Vermont Regional Airport (RUT) to Republic Airport (FRG)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD03FA024
- 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
- 2 · 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-32R-301T
- 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
- N8168G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rutland - Southern Vermont Regional Airport (RUT), RUTLAND STATE, VTTo Republic Airport (FRG), Farmingdale, NY
- 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
- Fire
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While in cruise flight at night, the pilot declared an emergency, and reported heavy smoke in the cockpit and an engine fire. Approximately 3 minutes later, while being vectored by air traffic control to a local airport, the airplane crashed in residential property. Several witnesses, including an air traffic controller, saw a red glow or flames around the front of the airplane prior to impact. The controller stated that when he first saw the airplane, it was headed toward the airport, in a descent, with its landing lights on. He momentarily turned his attention away from the airplane, but when he looked at it again, the engine area was engulfed in yellow flames. The airplane then began an uncontrolled descent, and disappeared from view. A post-accident examination of the airplane revealed that it was heavily fragmented from the impact and post-crash fire. In addition, magnesium engine parts were exposed to water during fire fighting efforts, which caused additional damage to portions of the engine and accessories. Examination of the wreckage revealed that the majority of in-flight fire damage was located on the right side of the airplane, from the engine cowling, back to the right passenger door. The source of the engine fire could not be determined.
Probable cause
An engine fire for undetermined reasons, which resulted in the pilot's loss of control, and the airplane's subsequent impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD03FA024
- Event ID
- 20030106X00013
- Case number
- IAD03FA024
- 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 2002-12-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4cc4ea89b169aec0fc3673a55ec91a7c6ca4e42dc25973decdab237e512b509c; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:32:59.688Z.