BFO96LA037 · Piper PA-28-181
Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Pbeaaye Airport (Y30) to I40
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO96LA037
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28-181
- 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
- N9248K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pbeaaye Airport (Y30), Ionia, MITo I40
- 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
- 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 · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
An instrument flight instructor (CFII) and an instrument rated private pilot were on a dual purpose mission to obtain an instrument compentency check along with a business flight. The pilots reported that they noted evidence of carburetor ice during the flight; therefore, as they began their descent to the destination, they elected to use carburetor heat throughout the remainder of the flight. The pilots reported that as they initiated a missed approach procedure, the airplane engine began to lose power. They began maneuvering for an emergency landing, then the engine lost power completely. The CFII took control of the airplane and maneuvered the airplane to avoid a treeline during the landing. Subsequently, the airplane struck the ground in a snow covered field, while in a right wing low attitude. Both pilots stated that they believed the loss of engine power was due to carburetor ice. However, they were flying in conditions of snow, and 23 miles south at Zanesville, OH, the temperature and dew point were reported to be 19 and 14 degrees F, respectively. According to icing probability charts, conditions were marginally conducive (borderline) for carburetor ice. Postaccident engine examination and a test run revealed no evidence of a preimpact mechanical malfunction.
Probable cause
loss of engine power for an undetermined reason(s). A factor relating to the accident was: the proximity of high obstructions (trees) to the emergency landing area.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO96LA037
- Event ID
- 20001208X05101
- Case number
- BFO96LA037
- 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: cf30db476c95f88cd79b2d5afcedc7d2399214309bbcbeab75bf5ddc81e33daa; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:54:16.390Z.