Engine Dies at 3,000 Feet, Pilot Steers Piper Onto NC Logging Path

A single-engine plane bound for Ocracoke Island slammed into a wooded logging path near Cahoon Road in Pinetown on August 6 after its engine suddenly quit at 3,000 feet, leaving the aircraft with a snapped-off landing gear and a wing torn open by a tree strike. All three people aboard walked away with only minor injuries.

The aircraft, a 1976 Piper PA-32-260 Cherokee Six carrying the tail number N8791E, had departed Martin County Airport in Williamston and was roughly ten minutes into cruise flight when the Lycoming O-540 engine experienced what the National Transportation Safety Board preliminary report described as a total loss of power. According to the Charlotte Observer, the pilot transmitted a mayday call, attempted to restart the engine, and established the airplane's best-glide airspeed before selecting the logging path for a forced landing. The plane's left wing struck a tree along that path, and its fuselage impacted another tree before the aircraft came to rest in a ditch near a wood line.

Federal Investigators Log the Timeline

The NTSB opened a formal investigation under case number ANC26LA080, logging the crash at approximately 1:55 p.m. EDT. Weather was not a factor: the safety board's preliminary data recorded clear visual conditions at the time, with 10 miles of visibility, winds of just 6 knots, and scattered clouds at 3,900 feet.

Beaufort County Emergency Services and first responders were dispatched to the Cahoon Road area after a bystander spotted the wrecked plane and called law enforcement around 2 p.m., per the same NTSB account. The Observer's reporting, drawn from the same federal filing, notes the plane sustained substantial damage, its landing gear snapped off, and the pilot and two passengers all suffered only minor injuries. Federal Aviation Administration registry records show N8791E, owned by Littleton, North Carolina-based KL&Z Farms LLC, held a valid airworthiness certificate issued in December 2018 that runs through December 2028.

Recovery and the Road to a Final Ruling

After investigators finished documenting the scene, the damaged plane was recovered from the Pinetown logging path and moved to a secure facility for detailed engine and airframe teardown, according to the NTSB's preliminary filing. Standard NTSB procedure means a full accident report establishing probable cause typically takes 12 to 24 months, as investigators complete metallurgical testing, component teardowns, and flight-data analysis before the safety board issues a final ruling. For now, the exact cause of the sudden power loss remains undetermined.

Pinetown sits roughly 120 miles southeast by road from downtown Raleigh, and the flight's intended destination, Ocracoke Island Airport, is a public airstrip owned by the National Park Service and operated by the North Carolina Department of Transportation, according to Carolana. The airport lies about 75 miles southeast of Martin County Airport in Williamston, per SkyVector, forming a route that routinely carries small aircraft across Beaufort County before they cross open water to reach the Outer Banks.

Second Aviation Scare That Week

The Pinetown crash was one of two general aviation emergencies reported in Eastern North Carolina that same week, as a landing gear collapse also occurred at Michael J. Smith Field Airport in Beaufort, according to WCTI News 12. A bystander near Cahoon Road who saw the wrecked plane was among those who alerted authorities, the station reported separately.

Beyond the immediate scramble to reach the crash site, the case now moves into a slower federal review. Investigators have logged the physical evidence — the sheared landing gear, the tree-struck wing, the fuselage damage — but the underlying mechanical question awaits the kind of teardown analysis that only a secure facility can provide over the coming months.