DFW07CA059 · Piper PA-46-310P
Piper PA-46-310P · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Rogers Municipal Airport-Carter Field (ROG) to Destin Executive Airport (DTS)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW07CA059
- 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-46-310P
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-46
- 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
- N6914T
- Operator
- Nick White
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rogers Municipal Airport-Carter Field (ROG), Rogers, ARTo Destin Executive Airport (DTS), Destin, FL
- 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 (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel contamination
- 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, fuel › Contamination, water
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 damaged during a forced landing in a muddy field following a loss of engine power. The pilot said that while in cruise flight at 23,000 feet mean sea level, he heard a "medium loud pop" about one hour into the flight and noted an immediate drop in manifold pressure to approximately 15-inches. The pilot added that he thought the turbocharger had failed and that the engine would return to normal power when the airplane descended to an altitude below 10,000 feet; however, engine power never returned and the pilot elected to execute a forced landing to a muddy pasture. Two safety inspectors from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) performed an on-scene examination of the airplane and the engine. According to an inspector, the pilot landed in a muddy pasture and the airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage, engine firewall, and landing gear. Examination of the engine, the accessories, and the fuel system revealed no mechanical deficiencies. When the airplane was recovered, approximately 90 gallons of blue colored aviation fuel was drained from both wing tanks and their respective collector/sump tanks, which were located at the root of each wing. Approximately one-quart of water was drained from both the left and right wing collector/sump tanks, which have a capacity of one U.S. gallon each. The engine was test-run on the airframe utilizing the airplane's existing fuel system. Due to the cool outside air temperature, the engine needed to be primed before it started. Once the engine started, it was operated through various power settings and it ran continuously without interruption. The magnetos functioned normally and all engine gauge readings were normal. No mechanical deficiencies were noted that could have contributed to the loss of power. The pilot stated that he conducted a preflight inspection of the airplane, which included draining both collector/sump tanks. The pilot added that no water was detected in the fuel at that time.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to water contamination in the fuel system. A factor was the muddy terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW07CA059
- Event ID
- 20070227X00232
- Case number
- DFW07CA059
- 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: a8771a1109ce9433460f90b99c7ec5f7e6a9eca588ac0be9a8300e786d18dcf9; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:03:43.753Z.