CHI07LA167 · Piper PA-34-200
Cloud Dancer Aviation Piper PA-34-200 · Accident: propeller failure/malfunction en route
From Daytona Beach International Airport (DAB) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI07LA167
- 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-34-200
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-34
- 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
- N15156
- Operator
- Cloud Dancer Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Daytona Beach International Airport (DAB), Daytona Beach, FLTo not recorded
- 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
- Propeller failure/malfunction
- 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
- Propeller system/accessories, hub › Fatigue
- Propeller system/accessories, hub › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certified flight instructor (CFI) reported that they were about to practice an engine failure at 6,000 feet mean sea level (msl). Upon shutting off fuel with the right fuel selector valve, a propeller blade separated from the right engine, and an unknown part penetrated the windshield. The CFI reported that the right engine "came almost completely apart and off in a matter of two seconds." The right engine was canted and hanging down, and altitude could not be maintained. The CFI maintained sufficient airspeed to maintain control during the descent, but he elected to do a forced landing to a field as a result of the loss of altitude. The airplane impacted the side of a creek during the forced landing, and ended right side up in about three feet of water in a creek. The Hartzell two bladed propeller hub and other components from the propeller assembly were sent to the National Transportation Safety Board's (NTSB) Materials Laboratory for examination. The hub from the right engine of the airplane was a left hand rotating (counterclockwise viewed from the rear) propeller. The inspection revealed that the hub was fractured around the socket for blade #1 (designated by serial number location) through both the forward and aft halves of the hub. The fracture surface contained features consistent with fatigue crack progression generally away from the grease fitting hole. The entire fatigue region measured about 3.1 inches in length from the grease fitting hole to near the forward centerline of the blade socket. On September 17, 2007, Hartzell Propeller Inc., issued an Alert Service Bulletin "HC-1SB-61-297, Propeller Hub Inspection." The bulletin stated in part: (1) There was a recent blade separation event originating in the lubrication hole located on the shoulder of the hub blade socket installed in a "left-hand" rotating propeller. (2) This Alert Service Bulletin introduces an initial and repetitive eddy current inspection of the area around the lubrication holes on "left-hand" rotating propellers on certain aircraft models.
Probable cause
The propeller blade separation from the propeller hub due to a fatigue fracture of the hub while in cruise flight. A factor was the embankment.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI07LA167
- Event ID
- 20070614X00728
- Case number
- CHI07LA167
- 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: 01f5ef8f7c63bc1b3f4671a847938cd62c33599bc8d5e790d3a9ec68eae11a2e; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:29:54.850Z.