ATL05LA101 · Piper PA-32-300
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Naples Municipal Airport (KAPF) to Asheville Regional Airport (KAVL)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL05LA101
- 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-32-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N646RM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Naples Municipal Airport (KAPF), Naples, FLTo Asheville Regional Airport (KAVL), Asheville, NC
- 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 · climb to 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
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 climbing after takeoff, and the pilot heard and felt a change in the engine operation. He stated the oil pressure gauge and the oil temperature gauge showed normal readings, but the engine rpm spiked briefly beyond redline then returned to a lower rpm. The pilot headed towards the nearest airport. He stated then "something gave in the engine, and it began to vibrate the yoke. A little further, and oil began to splatter on the windshield." The propeller continued to turn, the airplane could not maintain altitude, and the pilot glided it until it descended into trees and a swamp. Examination of the engine revealed cracks and a hole in the top of the crankcase. The No. 5 connecting rod cap was separated, pieces of the rod cap and bolts were in the engine sump, and the fracture features of the rod cap and bolts were obscured by mechanical damage. No evidence of oil leakage from any engine seals or at the propeller hub was observed. The connecting rods had been replaced during an engine major overhaul completed July 13, 1992. A new McCauley propeller was installed in accordance with Supplemental Type Certificate SA433CH on April 14, 2005, and an annual inspection was completed on the same date at an engine time since major overhaul of 1141.2 hours. The engine had accumulated 9 hours since the annual inspection, and the pilot reported there were no engine anomalies during those flights.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to the connecting rod cap separation for undetermined reasons. Related factors were trees and the swampy terrain condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL05LA101
- Event ID
- 20050623X00853
- Case number
- ATL05LA101
- 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: 92da883cda9e13c673061d0a51cfb97363cb6d2adb9bae2c2257eb7f2386cb8f; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:59:29.245Z.