CEN26LA202 · Piper PA-32R-300
Piper PA-32R-300 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Comanche County City Airport (MKN) to Fabens Airport (E35)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN26LA202
- 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-32R-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N4556Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Comanche County City Airport (MKN), Comanche, TXTo Fabens Airport (E35), Fabens, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 49 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
- 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 (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 May 22, 2026, about 1840 central daylight time, a Piper PA-32R-300 airplane, N4556Q, was substantially damaged during an accident near Comanche, Texas. The pilot and passenger were not injured. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 business flight.
The pilot reported that the airplane fuel system contained about 94 gallons of fuel before the flight and there were no issues with engine operation during a before takeoff engine runup. The pilot stated that the airplane was configured for takeoff with wing flaps at 25°, the fuel selector positioned to the left tank, and the auxiliary fuel pump turned on. The takeoff was conducted on runway 17.
After an uneventful takeoff roll and liftoff, the pilot established a positive rate climb, retracted the landing gear, and retracted the wing flaps. The pilot was about to enter a left turn to west when the airplane had a sudden reduction in engine power. The pilot immediately turned left to enter a left traffic pattern for runway 17 as he verified that the engine throttle was full forward, the mixture control was full rich, the auxiliary fuel pump was on, and he selected the right fuel tank. The airplane was unable to maintain altitude and eventually there was a total loss of engine power.
The pilot conducted a forced landing in a field on a heading of north. The pilot was able to extend the landing gear and wing flaps before landing in the field, but the airplane struck a barbed-wire fence and descended a hill. The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings and the empennage during the accident.
The airplane wreckage was recovered to a secure location where an examination will be conducted.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN26LA202
- Event ID
- 20260529203075
- Case number
- CEN26LA202
- 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, 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: 07ba66f1a0b90c979fe3c5e1ce4cbf558302d5f78d6d20e4c3993b371aed54d6; retrieved 2026-09-16T21:34:11.911Z.