CEN14LA449 · Piper PA 28-161
Piper PA 28-161 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Jack Brooks Regional Airport (BPT) to Lakefront Airport (NEW)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA449
- 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
- 0
- 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 28-161
- 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
- N8440N
- Operator
- Robert E Braswell · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jack Brooks Regional Airport (BPT), BEAUMONT/PORT ARTHUR, TXTo Lakefront Airport (NEW), New Orleans, LA
- Aircraft age
- About 33 years (built 1981)
- 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
- Approach
- 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/owner reported that, while on final approach to the destination airport, the engine experienced a total loss of power. The pilot was unable to restart the engine, and the airplane was unable to glide to the runway, so the pilot subsequently ditched the airplane into a lake. The pilot evacuated the airplane and swam to shore; the airplane sank into the lake but was subsequently recovered.
A postaccident examination of the engine's crankshaft gear, retaining bolt, and lockplate revealed that the retaining bolt had fractured; the fracture surfaces and the fine ratchet marks in the initiation area were consistent with fatigue crack propagation. Defined fretting wear scars were noted partially around the circumference of the bolt through-hole. The lockplate exhibited areas of fretting wear and polishing wear scars. The lockplate's retention tab was in the "open" position and did not exhibit typical mechanical deformation associated with bending to the "closed" position, which indicates that the lockplate was not installed properly.
The engine manufacturer had issued a service bulletin (SB) that outlined additional maintenance actions that should be taken if an engine experienced a propeller strike. Subsequently, the Federal Aviation Administration issued an airworthiness directive (AD) that made compliance with the SB mandatory. During the course of the investigation, the pilot reported that the engine had experienced a propeller strike days before the accident flight. He stated that he was unaware of the AD, so it was not accomplished after the propeller strike. It is likely that the crankshaft gear retaining bolt tension was loosened when the propeller strike occurred and that the improperly installed lockplate allowed the bolt to lose its clamping force. The loose bolt became fatigued and subsequently failed during the accident flight.
Probable cause
The in-flight fatigue failure of the crankshaft gear retaining bolt, which resulted in a total loss of engine power. Contributing to the accident were the pilot/owner’s failure to maintain the airplane in accordance with an airworthiness directive following a propeller strike and the improper installation of the lockplate.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA449
- Event ID
- 20140825X22812
- Case number
- CEN14LA449
- 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: c23ed4eceff7c0471c0b6ce914e3a6b97af7a58d1d163119190d00e6de97a0a2; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:40:43.682Z.