ATL03LA139 · Piper PA-28R-200
Piper PA-28R-200 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From 3M3 · Collegedale, TN to 3M3 · Collegedale, TN
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL03LA139
- 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-28R-200
- 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
- N2310T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 3M3 · Collegedale, TNTo 3M3 · Collegedale, TN
- 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, overhaul, major, improper
- Fluid, oil › Exhaustion
- Lubricating system, oil quickdrain/drain plug › Unapproved part
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane logbooks revealed that a newly overhauled engine was installed in the airplane on September 15, 2003. According to the certified flight instructor (CFI), this was a maintenance test flight to test the overhauled engine. According to the CFI, about 10 minutes into the flight, there was a partial loss of engine power. The CFI stated, "Approximately one minute later the engine lost complete power with propeller stoppage". Efforts by the CFI to restart the engine failed. As the CFI performed an emergency landing, the airplane collided with the ground. Examination of the airplane revealed that the incorrect oil quick-drain valve was installed on the engine and was in the open position in flight. The vacuum pump drive adapter was also missing a security nut. Evidence of engine oil was present inside the engine cowling area.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to oil exhaustion as a result of the installation of the incorrect quick-drain valve that opened during flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL03LA139
- Event ID
- 20030926X01601
- Case number
- ATL03LA139
- 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: 9fc76ecd6011d3168a3b2db4e48c231b18d21bc55028214423a29f2cb220bd75; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:22:03.188Z.