ERA21LA287 · Piper PA46-500TP
Piper PA46-500TP · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Washington Manassas Harry P. Davis Field (HEF)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA21LA287
- 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 PA46-500TP
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA46
- 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
- N31062
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Washington Manassas Harry P. Davis Field (HEF), Manassas, VA
- Aircraft age
- About 16 years (built 2005)
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After takeoff, the pilot retracted the landing gear and the turbopropeller-powered single-engine airplane’s engine lost partial power. The pilot attempted to regain engine power using a manual override but was unsuccessful. A forced landing was made at the departure airport, during which the airplane touched down at intersecting runways and traveled through the grass before coming to a stop, resulting in substantial damage to the fuselage. with the nose gear sheared off. Examination of the airplane after the accident revealed substantial damage to the fuselage. Examination of the engine revealed that the front of the compressor discharge air (P3) pneumatic line was secured to the gas generator case. The P3 line’s rear coupling nut was lockwired to the adjacent bolt. The lockwire was removed and the coupling nut was loosely fitted (no torque) with the adjacent nipple. The exterior surface of the nut exhibited fretting wear from contact with the twists of the lockwire. The fretting wear was observed on the conical surface of the nipple from contact with the mating surface of the tube. Examination at higher magnification of the oval-shaped fretting wear along the outer surface of the “B”-nut mating with the nipple showed the fretting damage occurred due to the nut being in contact with the lockwire while the nut was attempting to move in the counterclockwise direction (in the direction loosening the nut). Since the nut would not move significantly once the lockwire was in place, it suggested that the torque at installation was low, which would have allowed the nut to loosen, thus compromising the seal of the connection. Subsequently, when the pneumatic line seal became loose, it likely resulted in the loss of P3 air pressure and the subsequent partial loss of engine power like what the pilot described. A review of the maintenance records could not determine when the P3 pneumatic line was most recently secured.
Probable cause
The improperly secured pneumatic compressor discharge air (P3) line coupling nut on the engine, which ultimately allowed the nut to back off resulting in a partial loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA21LA287
- Event ID
- 20210714103478
- Case number
- ERA21LA287
- 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: df32d6494201692f1ddc1a2099b64afb5f9687afb4c7fcd9c4b17df84b36d561; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:17:25.302Z.