WPR19LA011 · Piper PA32R 300
Piper PA32R 300 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Indianapolis Metropolitan Airport (UMP) to Eagle Creek Airpark (EYE)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR19LA011
- 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 PA32R 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
- N2920Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Indianapolis Metropolitan Airport (UMP), Indianapolis, INTo Eagle Creek Airpark (EYE), Indianapolis, IN
- Aircraft age
- About 41 years (built 1977)
- 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)
- 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 pilot reported that he was approaching his destination airport at 1,000 ft above ground level when the engine lost total power. After an unsuccessful attempt to restart the engine, the pilot performed a forced landing to a nearby parking lot, during which the airplane sustained substantial damage. A postaccident examination of the engine revealed that the single-drive dual magneto failed to produce spark due to the displacement of its camshaft. As a result, when the camshaft was positioned to neutral, the contact points were opened instead of closed, and when the camshaft was rotated approximately 8°, the points were closed when they should have been open. The magneto was then re-assembled to manufacturer specifications, tested, and found to produce spark on all ignition leads. The displacement of the camshaft resulted in the magneto not producing spark on any of its ignition leads, and a subsequent loss of engine power. It could not be determined if the displacement of the magneto camshaft was a result of an improper installation or if it moved in flight.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power due to displacement of the dual magneto’s internal camshaft, which resulted in the magneto’s inability to produce spark.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR19LA011
- Event ID
- 20181021X15558
- Case number
- WPR19LA011
- 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, cause areas. 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: ee3ab0e0b9414394418f0f67683f12839c3a1293d687b86895a5cdc2812b65e5; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:22:11.893Z.