IAD96FA138 · Piper PA-24-180
Piper PA-24-180 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Mount Washington Regional Airport (HIE) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD96FA138
- 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
- 4 · 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-24-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N7635P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mount Washington Regional Airport (HIE)To not recorded
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel exhaustion; Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Whitefield, NH, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The airplane collided with the ground after takeoff about 3/4 mile from the end of the runway. Examination of the aircraft fuel system revealed that the fuel selector was in the right tank position. There was no evidence of fuel in the right tank. The left fuel tank bladder was ruptured. There was no evidence of foliage kill resulting from fuel spillage on the site. There was no strong smell of fuel on site. When the aircraft was lifted by a helicopter, an attempt to drain fuel from the main aircraft filter did not reveal any fuel in the filter. After recovery of the aircraft to a field at the Whitefield Airport, a more detailed examination of the of the fuel system revealed a small amount of fuel in the line from the left fuel tank to the fuel selector. There was no fuel in the line from the right tank to the fuel selector. The top skin was removed from the right wing and the fuel tank bladder was removed. There was no fuel in the bladder. There was a small hole near the bottom of the bladder along the inboard end. The surrounding structure was heavily creased in that area. There was no evidence of heavy fuel stains in that area.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to adequately preflight the aircraft which led to the loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion, and the pilot's attempt to return to the airport by executing a steep left turn which led to a stall and subsequent loss of control of the aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD96FA138
- Event ID
- 20001208X06524
- Case number
- IAD96FA138
- 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: 4a6b7b63aca761a225c7aefa238009643adae775849a58f371e2c126c28990e3; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:13:18.822Z.