ATL05LA118 · Piper PA-31P
Piper PA-31P · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during takeoff
From Isbell Field (4A9) to Gulfport Biloxi International Airport (GPT)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL05LA118
- 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-31P
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N4200N
- Operator
- Max Pak
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Isbell Field (4A9), Fort Payne, ALTo Gulfport Biloxi International Airport (GPT), Gulfport, MS
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft performance › Reduced
- Exhaust system, turbocharger › Inoperative
- Induction air ducting › Disconnected
- Miscellaneous, bolt/nut/fastener/clamp/spring › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after liftoff, about 20 feet above the ground, the pilot noticed a drop in the right engine manifold pressure. As the airplane began a right roll, efforts by the pilot to arrest the roll failed. When the pilot decided to put the airplane back on the ground, the right wing collided with the ground, the airplane cart wheeled and came to rest on its belly and burst into flames. Examination of the wreckage site revealed the aircraft located approximately 200 feet on the northwest side of the runway 22 centerline. The left fuel tank was ruptured and the left side of the airplane was fire damaged. Further examination revealed that the right engine's aft clamp connecting the turbocharger compressor outlet to the intercooler piping was broken, and the coupling was not secured to the turbocharger assembly. The examination also revealed that the aft clamp used to secure the coupling to the turbocharger assembly was not a T-bolt style clamp but, a standard automotive adjustable clamp. According to the engine manufacturer, the intercooler assembly and associated systems were produced by American Aviation, Inc., as a Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) SE3800NM product. When the STC installation was accomplished on the accident airplane was not determined.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to the failure of the aft clamp connecting the turbocharger compressor outlet to the intercooler ducting which resulted in reduced aircraft performance during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL05LA118
- Event ID
- 20050802X01136
- Case number
- ATL05LA118
- 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: f329830d354849f0f1ab2c19c4a5ed541e8341c89e2a4f0bde244433622c9e82; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:58:19.100Z.