NYC04LA105 · Piper PA-46-310P
Piper PA-46-310P · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Seamans Field (9N3) to Lancaster Airport (LNS)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC04LA105
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-46-310P
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-46
- 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
- N861DD
- Operator
- Timothy Morgan
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Seamans Field (9N3), Factoryville, PATo Lancaster Airport (LNS), Lancaster, PA
- 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)
- 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, bearing › Shifted
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Failure
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 was in a climb at 5,500 feet, when the engine began to vibrate and lose power. The pilot observed an increase in oil temperature, and a decrease in oil pressure; which was followed by a total loss of engine power. The pilot performed a forced landing to a field; however, during the landing, the airplane's left wing impacted a tree. Examination of the airplane revealed streaks of oil on the engine cowling, and a 6-inch hole in the top of the engine crankcase, in the vicinity of the number 2 cylinder. Further examination revealed that the number 2 connecting rod was broken into four pieces. The connecting rod journal was black in color and the metal had a "smeared" appearance. Fretting was observed on the mating surfaces of the number 2 main bearing saddles. In addition, the bearing shells had "walked" towards the rear of the engine about 1/4 of an inch. The crankcase through-bolt torques could not be determined. According to a representative of the engine manufacturer, a bearing shift could result in a decrease in oil flow to the journal, and a subsequent catastrophic engine failure. The airplane had been operated for 26 hours, since it's most recent annual inspection, which was performed about a month prior to the accident. The engine had been operated for about 1,700 hours, since it was rebuilt by TCM about 9 years prior to the accident.. The number 2 and 4 cylinders had been replaced about 830 hours prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The failure of the number 2 connecting rod, after a main bearing shift, which resulted in a catastrophic engine failure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC04LA105
- Event ID
- 20040419X00479
- Case number
- NYC04LA105
- 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: 212494b75185b7f5b287b9bb31b75093445d3523cad485272cafb88f839e75e9; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:44:21.011Z.