ERA25LA316 · Piper PA-28-140
Jarriel Investments Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Jackson County Airport (JCA) to Oconee County Regional Airport (CEU)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA25LA316
- 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
- Ongoing
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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-28-140
- 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
- N1684J
- Operator
- Jarriel Investments
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jackson County Airport (JCA), Jefferson, GATo Oconee County Regional Airport (CEU), Seneca, SC
- Aircraft age
- About 58 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 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On August 26, 2025, at 0831 eastern standard time, a Piper PA28-140, N1684J, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Seneca, South Carolina. The sole occupant, a student pilot, received minor injuries. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 instructional flight. The student pilot reported that the purpose of the flight was to perform a cross-country flight as part of training to obtain a private pilot certificate. Prior to the flight, the student pilot performed a preflight inspection of the airplane and noted that “all appeared to be normal and functioning correctly.” After refueling the airplane with 25.2 gallons, the pilot estimated the airplane had 42 gallons of total fuel onboard. He also estimated that 7 gallons of fuel would be required for the round-trip flight. The takeoff and climb from Jackson County Airport (JCA), Jefferson, Georgia were reported to be uneventful. The cruise altitude was 5,500 ft mean sea level (msl). Cruise and the subsequent descent were also reported to be uneventful. The pilot planned to enter the midfield downwind leg of the traffic pattern for landing on runway 25 at Oconee County Regional Airport (CEU), Seneca, South Carolina. After he entered the traffic pattern on the downwind leg, he selected full flaps. When the airplane was about 600 ft above ground level (agl), during the downwind to base turn, the pilot stated that engine began “misfiring and then shut off.” The pilot adjusted pitch to maintain 80 miles per hour and aimed the airplane towards the runway. The pilot attempted to troubleshoot by switching fuel tanks, moving the mixture control to the full rich position, and opening and closing the throttle. At 100 ft agl, the pilot determined that gliding to the runway was unlikely and aimed for a nearby field. At 0831, surveillance camera footage showed a low wing airplane strike a utility pole, before it impacted the tree line. A Federal Aviation Administration Inspector examined the airplane at the accident site and noted that the wings, engine mounts and fuselage of the airplane sustained substantial damage. The wreckage was recovered and retained for further examination.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA25LA316
- Event ID
- 20250826200864
- Case number
- ERA25LA316
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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, coordinates. 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: 53df7d60561b4e93a0566aaf2fb670c217994b380dfeba7848f61a3822783604; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:15:48.086Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: destination. Wrong state; CEU is Oconee County Regional Airport, Seneca, South Carolina, as the narrative and the location field record.