WPR15LA141 · Piper PA 28R-200
Piper PA 28R-200 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX) to Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15LA141
- 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
- N5469T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX), Santa Maria, CATo Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX), Santa Maria, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 43 years (built 1972)
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, during climbout, while the airplane was about 3,500 ft mean sea level, the engine lost partial power. He then turned the airplane back toward the airport. Shortly thereafter, the engine lost all power, and the pilot chose to initiate a forced landing to a nearby field about 4 miles southeast of the airport.
During postaccident examination of the engine, two cracks were observed on the upper portion of the engine crankcase near the No. 2 cylinder mounting surface. The crankshaft would not rotate by hand. Oil residue was observed on the left lower portion of the engine cowling and on the airplane's belly. A minimal amount of oil was observed in the oil filter and oil sump.
Review of the airplane's maintenance records revealed that an oil quick drain valve was installed on the engine 2 days before the accident. An aircraft manufacturer service letter (SL) and an airworthiness directive (AD) had been issued about 14 years before the accident to inform maintenance personnel about which oil quick drain valve should be installed on the accident make and model airplane. The SL provided a sketch of both the incorrect and correct oil quick drain valves, and the AD provided the approved part number. Examination of the engine revealed that the incorrect oil quick drain valve was installed on the engine. When the nose landing gear (NLG) assembly was actuated into its up-and-locked position, the bolt connecting the NLG assembly struck the oil quick drain valve, and several impact marks were present. It is likely that this damage resulted in the loss of oil and subsequent oil starvation to the engine.
The AD also required that two warning placards be installed, one on each side of the engine mounts, stating that unapproved oil quick drain valves can cause inadvertent draining when the gear is retracted and to use only the manufacturer-approved part to prevent the loss of oil due to the installation of an incorrect oil quick drain valve. No placards were observed on the engine mounts.
Probable cause
The engine failure due to oil starvation, which resulted from the installation of an unapproved oil quick drain valve that subsequently led to the inadvertent draining of the oil when the nose landing gear was retracted. Contributing to the accident was the lack of required warning placards on the engine mounts.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15LA141
- Event ID
- 20150406X95205
- Case number
- WPR15LA141
- 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, coordinates. 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: 2743c4e12a1a4f3225308e3fc5b4116131bfc0b4a4c8a48a22d44852cddca469; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:12:41.790Z.