CEN10LA023 · Piper PA-32-260
Illinois Aviation Academy Piper PA-32-260 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport (PIA) to Dupage Airport (DPA)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10LA023
- 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-32-260
- 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
- N3357W
- Operator
- Illinois Aviation Academy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport (PIA), Peoria, ILTo Dupage Airport (DPA), West Chicago, IL
- 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
- Initial climb
- Defining eventThe 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
- Loss of engine power (total)
- 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
- Pole
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident occurred about 8 minutes after takeoff on the final leg of a three leg cross-country flight. The pilot reported engine roughness followed by a partial loss of engine power during the climb out after takeoff, followed by a complete loss of engine power. The pilot’s attempts to restore engine power were not successful and he subsequently executed a forced landing onto a road about 7 miles from the departure airport. The right main landing gear struck a traffic light during the approach and the airplane landed hard. A post impact fire ensued and the pilot evacuated the airplane without injury. Post-accident examination of the engine and associated components did not reveal anomalies consistent with a pre-impact failure or malfunction.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for undetermined reasons during climb out after takeoff, which resulted in a forced landing to a roadway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10LA023
- Event ID
- 20091019X53101
- Case number
- CEN10LA023
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2009-10-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0ec4284764ef5f1848e27faffb71fbcde10242f6e922a0c3f2a80698b1f06c68; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:25:25.697Z.