WPR15LA157 · Piper PA 32-300 301
Piper PA 32-300 301 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during initial climb
From Redlands Municipal Airport (REI) to Oceano County Airport (L52)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15LA157
- 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 32-300 301
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N4124R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Redlands Municipal Airport (REI), Redlands, CATo Oceano County Airport (L52), Oceano, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 47 years (built 1968)
- 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 (partial)
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot reported that, about 30 seconds after takeoff, while the airplane was 250 ft above ground level, the engine began to emit an unusual sound, and he felt a vibration. He chose to land immediately and, due to obstacles ahead, he turned back toward the airport. He completed a steep turn and descended rapidly with the engine producing only partial power. Unable to maintain altitude, the airplane subsequently touched down hard on the runway. The pilot swerved to avoid oncoming traffic, which resulted in the right wing impacting a runway sign.
A postaccident examination of the engine revealed that there was a large hole on the top of the crankcase. Two connecting rods were separated from the crankshaft and exhibited mechanical and thermal damage, consistent with oil starvation. Oil streaks were found near the taxiway and run-up area, consistent with the airplane extruding oil before takeoff. When compressed air was directed into the oil cooler, air expelled from a small gap between mating brazed plates, indicating that oil could have extruded from that location.
Probable cause
The partial loss of engine power during takeoff due to oil starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15LA157
- Event ID
- 20150506X61506
- Case number
- WPR15LA157
- 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: a7fd3175ac7926d4137a285c305246bf75c92e3893cf72623ffe76515a23bb7c; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:17:40.557Z.