CEN15LA383 · Piper PA 25-235
Jakes Flying Service Piper PA 25-235 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) en route
From Harvey, ND to Harvey, ND
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15LA383
- 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 25-235
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-25
- 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
- N4652Y
- Operator
- Jakes Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Harvey, NDTo Harvey, ND
- Aircraft age
- About 48 years (built 1967)
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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 (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 › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot/owner noted that, during previous flights in the agricultural application airplane, he had heard a "wheezing" sound coming from the engine. During a conversation with a mechanic about the issue, the mechanic stated that the abnormal engine sound could have been due to an issue with an engine valve. Although an annual inspection was completed after the pilot first noted the issue, no maintenance was conducted to resolve the issue. Despite this, the pilot chose to continue flying the airplane.
The pilot reported that, while en route to the destination field during the accident flight, he heard a noise come from the engine, followed by a partial loss of power as the engine shuddered. He subsequently made a forced landing to a wheat field.
A postaccident engine examination revealed that the right magneto was not functioning, and two of the cylinders did not pass compression checks. The loss of engine power is consistent with a failed magneto and two cylinders with low compression.
Probable cause
The partial loss of engine power due to a failed magneto and two cylinders with low compression. Contributing to the accident was the pilot/owner’s decision to operate the airplane with an ongoing engine issue.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15LA383
- Event ID
- 20150826X45558
- Case number
- CEN15LA383
- 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 2015-08-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 84c0653acde8a44a1d73f9f1a6e91d8ba06c7844f85768ed8792db6f493ec695; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:42:55.709Z.