WPR22LA081 · Piper PA-28
Third Step 2 Piper PA-28 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Henderson Executive Airport (HND) to Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR22LA081
- 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
- 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
- N5276W
- Operator
- Third Step 2
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Henderson Executive Airport (HND), Henderson, NVTo Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD), Chandler, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 60 years (built 1962)
- 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
- 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 was conducting a night cross-country flight when he noticed the engine oil pressure gauge indicating lower that it had been earlier in the flight. Although the engine was running fine, he started to look at the possibilities of gliding to an airport if needed. The pilot decided that he was not in an emergency situation; however, he altered his intended flight path to avoid a mountainous area and remain over a highway. After passing the highway and nearing an airport, the oil pressure dropped to near zero and the pilot started to make plans for an emergency landing. He attempted to turn the lights on at a nearby airport but was unsuccessful. The pilot decided to continue to another airport, which was about 22 nautical miles from his position. About halfway to the next airport, the engine noise started to change, followed by a reduction of engine power. He said the engine oil pressure gauge indicated zero and he subsequently added full power while looking for a place to land. Soon afterwards, the engine made “horrible noises” and lost all power. The pilot landed the airplane on a narrow graveled road between a chain link fence and a water canal. During the landing sequence, the right wing struck the fence, which resulted in substantial damage to the right wing, both ailerons, the left horizontal stabilizer, and the left elevator. Postaccident examination of the engine revealed that the No. 3 piston oil control ring was stuck in its ring land resulting in an excessive blow-by condition. The blow-by condition caused the engine crankcase to pressurize and vent oil from the crankshaft oil seal, crankcase breather system, and the No. 3 combustion chamber until the sump was depleted of oil. This oil depletion resulted in the thermal distress and material deformation of the No. 2 connecting rod bearing and crankshaft journal and the subsequent separation of the No. 2 connecting rod.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to oil exhaustion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR22LA081
- Event ID
- 20220118104534
- Case number
- WPR22LA081
- 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, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2022-01-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 471213a39dc226a1d2cf8e7597bac747bdd8ddf2793a2f0089aa5487776f375a; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:53:55.886Z.