CHI05LA019 · Piper PA-24
Piper PA-24 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Chicago Executive Airport (PWK) to Evansville Regional Airport (EVV)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI05LA019
- 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-24
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N6764P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago Executive Airport (PWK), Wheeling, ILTo Evansville Regional Airport (EVV), Evansville, IN
- 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
- 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
- Engine assembly, crankshaft › Failure, total
- Engine assembly, crankshaft › Fatigue
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 substantially damaged during a forced landing following a complete loss of engine power during initial climb after takeoff. The pilot reported that approximately 10 minutes after takeoff, when the flight was about 3,000 feet mean sea level, he heard a "loud bang followed by extreme vibrations of the aircraft." The pilot executed a forced landing on a four-lane highway about 4 miles north of the departure airport. He noted, "While flaring to land a car turned in front of me. I avoided the car, however, the left wing started clipping trees." The airplane came to rest on the highway median. A post-accident inspection of the engine determined that the crankshaft had failed aft of the number 2 main bearing journal. Metallurgical examination of the crankshaft fracture surface revealed crack arrest marking (beach marks) indicative of fatigue cracking. Fatigue initiation was at the surface of the main bearing journal slightly forward of the aft radius. The adjacent journal surface was roughened and discolored with multiple longitudinally oriented parallel cracks (ladder cracks) in the surface. Magnified examination found that the fatigue fracture originated at one of the ladder cracks and grew aft through about 75 percent of the crank cheek before the crankshaft failed. The other journals showed some circumferential scratches and light wear. However, none showed the high level of surface damage exhibited by the fractured main journal. According to the maintenance logbook, the engine had accumulated 3,109.8 hours total time and 876.8 hours since overhaul.
Probable cause
Fatigue fracture of the engine crankshaft during initial climb after takeoff resulting in a complete loss of engine power. Contributing factors were the trees and the highway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05LA019
- Event ID
- 20041029X01726
- Case number
- CHI05LA019
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2004-10-29.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7784b43f765cdf30da1e71490f3494996865bb04ec38f99c9f3402644e6a01bf; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:11:33.456Z.