CEN15LA157 · Piper PA 28R-200
Piper PA 28R-200 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Bishop International Airport (FNT) to Saginaw County H.W. Browne Airport (HYX)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15LA157
- 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
- N2837R
- Operator
- Nightingale Charles H
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bishop International Airport (FNT), Flint, MITo Saginaw County H.W. Browne Airport (HYX), Saginaw, MI
- Aircraft age
- About 46 years (built 1969)
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, during climbout on the return leg of an out-and-back flight, he noticed the engine hesitate for 1 or 2 seconds and then recover to normal operation. The pilot continued climbing the airplane and proceeded toward his home airport. While approaching the airport, the engine made abnormal noises, followed by a total loss of power. The pilot then executed a forced landing into a field.
Postaccident examinations of the engine revealed that it had a very low quantity of oil; however, no visible evidence of oil loss or indication of excess oil consumption was found. A teardown examination of the engine revealed that all four piston connecting rods had failed. The failure signatures were consistent with a lack of lubrication. Based on the evidence, it is likely that the engine failed due to a lack of oil lubrication; however, the reason for the lack of oil could not be determined.
Probable cause
The failure of the engine due to a lack of oil lubrication for reasons that could not be determined during postaccident examinations.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15LA157
- Event ID
- 20150302X02845
- Case number
- CEN15LA157
- 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: ed2dd19adda5e6db145cc6e88590afe7898d051568e3248afd5fd894258ed1f5; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:06:59.416Z.