CHI06FA030 · Piper PA-23-160
Piper PA-23-160 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport (PIA) to Johnston Regional Airport (JNX)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI06FA030
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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-23-160
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N4319P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport (PIA), Peoria, ILTo Johnston Regional Airport (JNX), Smithfield, 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not possible
- Pilot in command › Physical impairment(cardiovascular)
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 impacted terrain during a night visual approach to an airport following a partial loss of right engine power that occurred during cruise flight. There was no emergency declared by the pilot who initially elected to divert to the airport of last departure which was 37 nautical miles west of the accident airport. Air traffic control then informed the pilot the location of the closer accident airport. Examination of the wreckage and component testing did not reveal any mechanical problems that would have precipitated a partial loss of right engine power. During the approach, the pilot made three exclamations over tower frequency accompanied by heavy breathing. The pilot's autopsy revealed evidence that a tear in the aorta (aortic dissection) had occurred prior to the accident and resulted in the rapid accumulation of blood around the heart, substantially impairing heart function and leading to impairment or incapacitation. This type of tear in the aorta typically presents with a sudden onset of severe pain, and there is no testing for aortic dissection that would be routinely performed in the absence of such pain. The condition would most likely have been fatal regardless of the circumstances under which it occurred.
Probable cause
The aircraft control not possible by the pilot during a visual approach to the runway due to the physical impairment of the pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI06FA030
- Event ID
- 20051115X01839
- Case number
- CHI06FA030
- 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 2005-11-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ef8f85a26b3904a8074936ecb213c904998b051649ff695761970abbc020ed8d; retrieved 2026-09-18T12:57:55.645Z.