NYC06LA090 · Piper PA-30
Piper PA-30 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Newport News Williamsburg International Airport (PHF) to Hampton Roads Executive Airport (PVG)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC06LA090
- 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-30
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-30
- 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
- N7812Y
- Operator
- Cortney Kinnan
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newport News Williamsburg International Airport (PHF), Newport News, VATo Hampton Roads Executive Airport (PVG), Norfolk, VA
- 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
- 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 maintained
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 was conducting a local "shakeout" flight, as the airplane had not flown since its last inspection 9 months prior. The pilot performed a preflight inspection and observed that the fuel was "almost full" in the main tanks and "almost halfway full" in the auxiliary tanks. The pilot "sumped" the fuel tanks, and observed some water in the fuel. After departure, the airplane seemed to be operating "normally," but at a slower indicated airspeed than normal for the power setting. The pilot flew toward the nearest airport, where he also intended to purchase fuel. As the pilot lowered the landing gear on the downwind leg of the traffic pattern, he did not observe the "gear down" lights illuminate in the cockpit. Shortly after, the pilot noticed that the left engine rpm and manifold pressure were "up" but the engine "wasn't producing much thrust." The pilot cycled the landing gear and continued troubleshooting the left engine; however, the gear did not extend, and he decided to perform a single-engine go-around. During the go-around the airplane rolled to the left "near Vmc," impacted trees, and came to rest inverted in a swamp. Examination of the magnetos revealed they would not produce spark when functionally tested on a test bench. Disassembly of the magnetos revealed rust and corrosion, and that the points were insulated. It could not be deduced whether these conditions were present at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control during a single-engine go-around. A factor was the partial loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC06LA090
- Event ID
- 20060422X00474
- Case number
- NYC06LA090
- 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: d6e89f7ef3b94e3231107e8e68d1efc4c5d61297f741c2ed302d5682289e032b; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:01:20.522Z.