DEN06LA112 · Piper PA-24-260
Piper PA-24-260 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Garden City Regional Airport (GCK) to Billings Logan International Airport (BIL)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN06LA112
- 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-24-260
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N8741P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Garden City Regional Airport (GCK), Garden City, KSTo Billings Logan International Airport (BIL), Billings, MT
- 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
- Engine assembly, connecting rod › Failure
- Powerplant › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While in cruise flight at an altitude of approximately 8,500 feet, the pilot heard a "loud bang," and the engine oil pressure decreased. Shortly thereafter, engine oil was noted on the windscreen, and the engine lost power. Subsequently, the pilot initiated a forced landing to a field. During the forced landing, the airplane impacted terrain and the nose and right main landing gears collapsed. Examination of the airplane revealed the right wing was buckled. A review of the maintenance records revealed that most recent annual inspection was completed on November 11, 2005, at a total airframe time of 3,358 hours. The engine had accumulated 257 hours since major overhaul and 49 hours since the annual inspection. No additional maintenance besides an oil change was performed on the engine since the November 11th inspection. Examination and disassembly of the engine revealed that connecting rods had been fractured and separated. The pistons were found separated from the connecting rods. The six pistons displayed cracks and fractures along the piston pin bosses, and mechanical damage was noted on the bottom side of the piston. The pistons were retained for further examination by the NTSB materials laboratory. The connecting rod and main bearings displayed evidence of discoloration and heat signatures. The crankshaft counterweights were separated from the crankshaft. Metallurgical examination of two pistons revealed that fractures along the boss for the piston pin were consistent with overstress separation in a casting.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power resulting from mechanical failure of a connecting rod for undetermined reasons. A contributing factor was the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN06LA112
- Event ID
- 20060811X01155
- Case number
- DEN06LA112
- 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: 4cdad6c02dc6cef2669339c5f68c14b2fe1c7af61d1579a48b7a4ebd90741f24; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:36:23.765Z.