ERA10LA486 · Piper PA-28R-200
Palmetto Aviation of Conway Piper PA-28R-200 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Barnwell Regional Airport (BNL) to Twin City Airport (5J9)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10LA486
- 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-28R-200
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N799SQ
- Operator
- Palmetto Aviation of Conway
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Barnwell Regional Airport (BNL), Barnwell, SCTo Twin City Airport (5J9), Loris, SC
- 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)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After fueling the airplane and checking the engine oil quantity, the pilot and his passenger departed for their destination. During the initial climb, about 1,000 feet above mean sea level, the airplane began to make a loud banging noise and started to shake violently. The pilot looked at the oil pressure gauge and noticed that there was no oil pressure. The pilot then attempted to turn back to the airport but realized that he would be unable to reach it. He observed that there was a small field to his left so he chose to land the airplane in the field. There were a few small trees in the center of the field and he tried to clear them but was unable to do so. The airplane struck the trees and the wings separated from the fuselage. The airplane then impacted the ground, the landing gear separated from the airplane, and the airplane slid to a stop on its belly.
A postaccident examination of the engine revealed that it contained oil and that the oil pump was functional. Further examination revealed that the end cap from the No. 1 connecting rod had broken. At the time of the accident the engine operating time had exceeded the manufacturer's recommended time between overhauls (TBO) by 79.1 hours, but it could not be determined why the end cap failed or if the exceedence of the recommended TBO contributed to the failure.
Probable cause
The failure of the No. 1 connecting rod end cap for undetermined reasons, which resulted in a total loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10LA486
- Event ID
- 20100919X50413
- Case number
- ERA10LA486
- 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: investigation status. 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: 55e5ecf6992526bc0cd2d50754c591c9d66b933312d583cec3631672763c7201; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:16:04.727Z.