ATL03LA103 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From North Pickens Airport (3M8) to Northwest Alabama Regional Airport (MSL)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL03LA103
- 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-28-140
- 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
- N44541
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Pickens Airport (3M8), Reform, ALTo Northwest Alabama Regional Airport (MSL), Muscle Shoals, AL
- 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 (non-mechanical)
- 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, connecting rod cap › Failure
- Fluid, oil › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, about 45 minutes into the flight, while flying at an altitude of 3000 feet, the engine lost power. Efforts by the pilot to restore full engine power were unsuccessful. The pilot selected a nearby pasture for an emergency landing. The airplane collided with trees as the pilot maneuvered for the emergency landing. Examination of the engine revealed, the # 2 cylinder rod cap was broken, an no oil was found in the engine and the oil sump was dry. Review of the Cherokee 140 owner's handbook, section VI, Oil Requirements, states: The capacity of the O-320 series engine is 8 quarts, and the minimum safe quantity is 2 quarts. Section III, Preflight; states: 5c, (Check for obvious fuel or oil leaks.) 5d, (Check oil level, 8 quarts maximum.) The pilot did not report finding any problems with the airplane during his preflight.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight inspection by his failure to ensure adequate oil supply, which resulted in oil exhaustion and the failure of the connecting rod cap.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL03LA103
- Event ID
- 20030616X00874
- Case number
- ATL03LA103
- 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: 5e1385a3baa28a53ea8282a344ed0da1efeeb90eaa7e730256144c270db89b4c; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:12:13.163Z.