CHI99LA123 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Dalton Airport (3DA) to Bishop International Airport (FNT)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI99LA123
- 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 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
- N6454R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dalton Airport (3DA), Flushing, MITo Bishop International Airport (FNT), MI
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Pole
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Flint, MI, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
According to the flight instructor, while on approach to runway 23, the dual student reduced engine power in order to lose some altitude. When the airplane reached the desired altitude, the throttle was advanced but no response was noted from the engine. The instructor took control of the airplane, attempted to troubleshoot the loss of engine power, and then elected to land the airplane in a parking lot north of the airport. Approximately 30 feet above ground level, it collided with a light pole, impacted the terrain, and came to rest on an embankment near an exit ramp for I-75. Examination of the wreckage failed to reveal any apparent preaccident anomalies with the airplane or its engine.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons. A factor associated with the accident was the lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI99LA123
- Event ID
- 20001205X00433
- Case number
- CHI99LA123
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: b1c286f11bb376de54c24f954adca168ee54177116b6b44ab4e3baffbc5471a8; retrieved 2026-09-22T15:31:56.486Z.