DFW07FA007 · Piper PA-32R-300
Piper PA-32R-300 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport (PLK) to Alexandria International Airport (AEX)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW07FA007
- 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-32R-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N64GK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport (PLK), Point Lookout, MOTo Alexandria International Airport (AEX), Alexandria, LA
- 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
- Fluid, oil › Starvation
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor was acting as pilot-in-command of the cross-country flight in the student pilot's airplane with the student and three passengers. The instructor related that the engine oil level prior to departure was 9 quarts, and that the oil on the dipstick was clean. While in cruise flight, the low oil pressure warning light flickered, and the oil pressure dropped. The instructor elected to continue the flight after a discussion with the student pilot, and after monitoring other engine gauges and determining that the engine was running smoothly. About 20 minutes later, the engine made a "slight clatter noise" and the instructor elected to divert to a closer airport. Shortly thereafter, there was a loud "bang" and the engine seized. A forced landing was made to a small pasture, during which the airplane collided with a fence and trees. Inspection of the airplane revealed no oil on the top of the cowling and windshield. Oil was found on the bottom of the cowling and in trail on the bottom of the fuselage. Examination of the engine disclosed evidence of internal catastrophic failure consistent with a lack of sufficient lubrication.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power during cruise flight due to oil starvation, resulting in an emergency off-airport forced landing. A factor associated with the accident was the instructor's improper in-flight decision in delaying to seek an emergency landing site following a loss of oil pressure indication.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW07FA007
- Event ID
- 20061108X01626
- Case number
- DFW07FA007
- 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: deb7ef3d9a05caf02c24299e211c8e51a7256fc20e60bb1116ce6d1e6fd4d2db; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:01:18.445Z.