IAD03LA063 · Piper PA-23-180
Piper PA-23-180 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Akron Canton Regional Airport (CAK) to Wadsworth Municipal Airport (3G3)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD03LA063
- 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-23-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N825SA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Akron Canton Regional Airport (CAK), Akron-Canton Re, OHTo Wadsworth Municipal Airport (3G3), Wadsworth Munic, OH
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not possible
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vmc), not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Prior to take off, the pilot conducted a pre-flight inspection and engine run-up, and found "nothing unusual." On the take off roll, he rotated at 80 mph. As the airplane began to climb, the pilot said the left engine rpm dropped to 1,500 RPM, and the airplane veered left. He was unable to maintain altitude or directional control, and contacted the ground with the left wing first, followed by the nose. A witness stated that when the airplane was 15-20 feet above the ground, he heard a loud popping noise. The engines revved up and it looked like the airplane was going to land, but continued to climb with louder than normal engine revs. The engines were examined under the supervision of a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector, and no mechanical deficiencies were noted. The airplane was released to the owner, who later sold it to an airplane salvage company. According to a representative of the salvage company, during a teardown of the left engine, the main bearing was found partially seated on the journal. It appeared blue in color. At the time of the accident, the engine had accrued a total of 1,607 hours since field overhaul.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain minimum control single engine airspeed (Vmc) during a loss of power on one engine, which resulted in a loss of control in flight an in-flight collision with terrain. A factor was a shifted main journal, which resulted in a partial loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD03LA063
- Event ID
- 20030729X01221
- Case number
- IAD03LA063
- 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: 745032be757c32a262befc15d98c2c0147279c3c4f3720769d4f1b6bd5492a3e; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:25:03.114Z.