CEN15LA228 · Piper PA 28-161
Piper PA 28-161 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Abilene Regional Airport (KABI) to KCBN · Cleburn, TX
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15LA228
- 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 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
- N3024S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Abilene Regional Airport (KABI), Abilene, TXTo KCBN · Cleburn, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 36 years (built 1979)
- 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 · cruise
- 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)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot reported that, during cruise flight on a night training flight, he heard "two knocks" coming from the engine, followed by a total loss of power. After attempting to restart the engine without success, the pilot executed a forced landing onto a field, during which the airplane impacted a tree.
Teardown of the engine revealed that the No. 4 piston crown and connecting rod were fractured. Laboratory examination revealed two thumbnail-shaped fatigue cracks on the piston crown's underside near an oil drain hole along the top oil groove on the piston circumference. The fatigue cracks had propagated from initiation sites along the circumferential oil groove at or near the oil drain hole. The cause of the initiation of the fatigue cracks could not be determined due to postfracture smearing damage.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during cruise flight due to piston fatigue cracking for reasons that could not be determined due to postfracture smearing damage.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15LA228
- Event ID
- 20150512X33748
- Case number
- CEN15LA228
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2015-05-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: bf68512ec7fdb88c4cd39ae09ab67e55b6078958807f62bfcc4b807eb5b4e7ac; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:18:11.087Z.