ERA11FA334 · Piper PA-24-250
Piper PA-24-250 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From HVN · Shirley, NY to Chester Airport (SNC)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11FA334
- 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
- 1 · 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-24-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N8233P
- Operator
- Bendzlowicz Peter P III · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From HVN · Shirley, NYTo Chester Airport (SNC), Chester, CT
- 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
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During approach to the destination airport, the airplane experienced a loss of engine oil pressure followed by a total loss of engine power. The airplane subsequently impacted wooded terrain about 3 miles from the runway. Examination of the engine revealed that the No. 3 cylinder had separated from the engine case, and its hold-down nuts were not recovered. The hold-down nuts for the adjacent No. 5 cylinder were loose and not adequately torqued to the extent that, had the engine continued to operate, the No. 5 cylinder would have separated. No other mechanical failures were noted with the engine. The Nos. 3 and 5 cylinders, which were newer than the other cylinders and were manufactured by a different company than the original engine manufacturer, were installed about 13 years prior to the accident. There was no record of any recent work performed on those cylinders, and the most recent annual inspection was completed 10 months prior to the accident. Based on the available evidence, the No. 3 cylinder separation was likely due to inadequate torquing of the cylinder hold-down nuts.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during approach due to inadequate torque on the No. 3 cylinder hold-down nuts.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11FA334
- Event ID
- 20110610X73839
- Case number
- ERA11FA334
- 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: 651a4a611f14c5a6f57e115cc86e0b700c3a8bb1dcccffb2752bca63e49e1aa6; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:27:22.796Z.