NYC06LA097 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: propeller failure/malfunction during initial climb
From New Garden Airport (N57) to N57
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC06LA097
- 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
- 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-28-140
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N15507
- Operator
- Gregory Eames
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From New Garden Airport (N57), Avondale, PATo N57
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Propeller failure/malfunction
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Propeller system/accessories, blade › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the initial climb, about 1,500 feet, there was a loud metallic-sounding explosion; oil sprayed onto the windscreen, the engine cowling opened, and a section of the propeller departed the airplane. The pilot maneuvered the airplane toward an open area bordered by trees, but the airplane struck the trees, burst into flames, and then collided with terrain. Examination of the propeller revealed that a large portion of the fracture surface displayed crack arrest positions typical of fatigue cracking. The fracture features emanated from an origin area on the camber (forward) surface of the propeller. Microscopic examination revealed an area of corrosion around the fatigue origin, as well as sanding scratches and conversion (Alodine) coating. Examination of maintenance records revealed repairs to the face of the propeller blades, as well as "repitching" of the propeller blades following the overhaul and conversion of the engine.
Probable cause
Separation of the propeller blade due to fatigue.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC06LA097
- Event ID
- 20060422X00478
- Case number
- NYC06LA097
- 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: 1e434b2644f84c9f2831724854e2cc7b8a4dbfca1d025859c1311357bccdcbd6; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:24:43.467Z.