DEN06LA062 · Piper PA-46-350P
Piper PA-46-350P · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Las Cruces International Airport (LRU) to Clovis Municipal Airport (CVN)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN06LA062
- 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-46-350P
- 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
- N82LL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Las Cruces International Airport (LRU), Las Cruces, NMTo Clovis Municipal Airport (CVN), Clovis, NM
- 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
- Exhaust system, turbocharger › Failure
- Fluid, oil › Exhaustion
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that while in cruise flight, the engine manifold pressure dropped followed by a loss of oil pressure. The pilot elected to divert to a nearby airport. During the descent, the engine began to fail. The pilot elected to force land the airplane on a road. While setting up for the landing, the engine seized. During the landing roll, the airplane's right wing struck a road sign, causing substantial damage to the airplane. An initial examination of the airplane showed oil adhering along the full length of the bottom fuselage. The oil originated at the engine right side exhaust pipe. An examination of the airplane's engine showed the right hand turbocharger impeller blades were worn at the tips. Some of the blades were fractured. There was also excessive play noted in the compressor assembly. An examination of the turbocharger was conducted at the NTSB Materials Laboratory. The examination determined that the impeller's aluminum bearings were heavily worn and distorted. There was no sign of overheating in the bearings. Attempt to do a Rockwell hardness test were made, but accurate readings could not be gained due to the softness of the metal. Further examination showed damage to the oil seal at the impeller shaft.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to failed bearings in the turbocharger and the subsequent oil seal failure leading to oil exhaustion. Factors contributing to the accident were the fractured oil seal and the road sign.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN06LA062
- Event ID
- 20060417X00447
- Case number
- DEN06LA062
- 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: ad778b882275d1c8699a57fc58f710b4de97cdfe09e393df52be4dd7f3c563d9; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:00:00.302Z.