ATL06LA077 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Columbia Metropolitan Airport (CAE) to Myrtle Beach International Airport (MYR)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL06LA077
- 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-28-180
- 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
- N15702
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Columbia Metropolitan Airport (CAE), Columbia, SCTo Myrtle Beach International Airport (MYR), Myrtle Beach, SC
- 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 · descent
- 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)
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Engine assembly, valve, exhaust › Fatigue
- Engine assembly, valve, exhaust › Overtemperature
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 stated that he was cleared by Myrtle Beach Approach Control to descend from 7,000 feet to 3,000 feet. While descending through 6,000 feet, the pilot heard a "pop" sound, and the engine began to run rough with partial power. The pilot looked at the engine monitor gage and the No. 3 engine cylinder temperature gage indicated 900 degrees. The pilot declared an emergency with the controller, decreased power, requested and received clearance to the nearest airport, made a 180 degree turn and continued his descent through the clouds. Upon reaching visual flight conditions the pilot observed the airport straight ahead. The pilot descended over the airport to lose altitude and turned on final approach. The engine failed at 300 feet, the pilot initiated a forced landing to an open field and the airplane collided with trees and the ground. Examination of the engine assembly revealed the No.3 engine cylinder exhaust valve had failed. The valve was forwarded to the NTSB Metallurgical Laboratory for further analysis. The examination revealed the exhaust valve failed due to fatigue resulting from thermal stress.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to a total failure of the No.3 engine cylinder exhaust valve as a result of fatigue from over temperature resulting in a forced landing and collision with trees and the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL06LA077
- Event ID
- 20060511X00550
- Case number
- ATL06LA077
- 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: af8f1b2e5b5756f7d98ed87edf18fa6835704e0e1e4c031c383e0dec67748fba; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:46:39.234Z.