ERA17LA034 · Piper PA32 300
Piper PA32 300 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Orlando Sanford International Airport (SFB) to Bartow Executive Airport (BOW)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA17LA034
- 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 PA32 300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA32
- 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
- N3941X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Orlando Sanford International Airport (SFB), Orlando, FLTo Bartow Executive Airport (BOW), Bartow, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 41 years (built 1975)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While approaching the airport, the private pilot reduced engine power in preparation for landing. At that time, the airplane began to vibrate and shake. The engine then lost total power, while the propeller continued to windmill. He attempted to restart the engine using the emergency checklist procedures but was unsuccessful. He determined that he would not be able to reach the runway and maneuvered toward a nearby pasture for an emergency landing. During the landing rollout, the airplane struck a fence, damaging the left wheel hydraulic brake line, which caused a loss of brake pressure. When the pilot applied the brakes, he lost directional control, and the nose landing gear collapsed.
Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the firewall was damaged and the fuselage skin aft of the firewall was wrinkled. An unmeasured amount of fuel was present in all four fuel tanks, and fuel was present at the fuel injector nozzles; thus, adequate fuel was onboard for the flight. Oil was present in the crankcase, and cylinder compression was attained on all cylinders when the propeller was rotated by hand. While rotating the engine, a grinding/crunching noise occurred once but was not repeatable. A subsequent partial teardown examination of the engine did not reveal any evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Thus, the reason for the total loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during approach for reasons that could not be determined because engine examinations did not reveal any evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA17LA034
- Event ID
- 20161103X34437
- Case number
- ERA17LA034
- 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: 612a7722d32589fe1fc6c799a21fa056597e05efabfc0487b642fc6b3bfd4312; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:48:29.110Z.