CEN12FA653 · Piper PA-46-350P
Piper PA-46-350P · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Centennial Airport (KAPA) to Trent Lott International Airport (KPQL)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12FA653
- 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-46-350P
- 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
- N188SR
- Operator
- Don Woroner
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Centennial Airport (KAPA), Englewood, COTo Trent Lott International Airport (KPQL), Pascagoula, MS
- 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
The pilot reported that as the airplane climbed to about 10,000 feet mean sea level after takeoff, the engine began a “moderate violent shaking.” The oil pressure then decreased rapidly, oil sprayed on the windshield, and the engine seized. The pilot made a forced landing in a hay field, during which the airplane’s nose gear collapsed and the left wing rear spar was bent. Examination of the engine revealed corrosion and pitting on the cylinder walls, camshaft, and lifters, which likely contributed to accelerated wear of engine components and the subsequent failure of the front crankshaft seal. The airplane had annual inspections in May 2011 and August 2012, but no records of maintenance could be located for about a 4 year period before the May 2011 inspection. The airplane had accumulated only about 38 hours in the previous 5 years, including less than 2 hours in the 1 year preceding the accident. The observed engine wear and damage was consistent with engine operations after an extended period of inactivity; however, the wear and damage could have been detected during at least the August 2012 inspection. The circumstances of the engine failure were consistent with a mechanical failure due to unrecognized or unrepaired corrosion in the engine.
Probable cause
A catastrophic engine failure due to unrecognized and unrepaired corrosion within the engine, which was consistent with engine operations after an extended period of inactivity.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12FA653
- Event ID
- 20120921X62052
- Case number
- CEN12FA653
- 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: cfe54887bef82e323464fceda1d1d098ac028af57048e1aeb8f612311392040c; retrieved 2026-09-15T19:59:30.689Z.