DFW07FA020 · Piper PA-32-300
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Bill & Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field (LIT) to Wiley Post Airport (PWA)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW07FA020
- 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
- 3 · 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-32-300
- 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
- N15852
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bill & Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field (LIT), Little Rock, ARTo Wiley Post Airport (PWA), Oklahoma City, OK
- 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)
- 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
- Wire, transmission
- 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
- Engine assembly, cylinder › Failure
- Fluid, oil › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, not possible
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was in cruise flight at an assigned altitude of 6,000 feet mean sea level while on an instrument flight rules flight plan operating on a night cross-country flight while in visual meteorological conditions. The pilot reported a rough running engine to air traffic controller before transmitting a distress call. The pilot headed towards a local municipal airport; however, discontinued the approach and initiated a forced landing in a cleared pasture that appeared to be a suitable for a forced landing. Radar data depicts the airplane descending toward the area and the ground speed is reduced for the imminent forced landing. Short of the selected landing area, the airplane collided with unmarked powerlines running perpendicular to the selected clearing. There were no reported eyewitness to the accident. The wreckage of the single engine airplane was discovered the next morning. Ground signature at the accident site were consistent with a ground impact in the inverted position. A post-impact fire consumed the airframe, with the exception of the right wing and the aft section of the tail section. An examination of the engine revealed both engine case halves had matching serial numbers. About half of the engine oil pan was consumed by a post-impact fire. Engine control continuity could not be established due to the severity of the fire and separation from the engine mounts. A large hole was found on top of the engine case between the number 4 and number 6 cylinders. In addition, thermal signatures consistent with the lack of oil lubrication were noticeable on both the number 4 and number 6 cylinders. The number 5 cylinder was found separated from its mount. The number 5 connecting rod cap separated from the connecting rod and was not recovered. The maintenance records for the airframe and the powerplant were not located during the course of the accident investigation.
Probable cause
Failure of the number 5 cylinder which resulted in oil starvation and the subsequent loss of engine power, and the pilot's inability to see the transmission line during the forced landing. Factors Contributing to the accident were the dark night and the transmission line.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW07FA020
- Event ID
- 20061108X01628
- Case number
- DFW07FA020
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2006-11-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 64203992ee2f7137f8178acde26d20d322c3daa7ac6ed99682fa455adf4f199d; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:00:02.978Z.