FTW96LA403 · Piper PA-30
Piper PA-30 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during initial climb
From FTG · CO to O61 · Sacramento, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96LA403
- 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-30
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-30
- 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
- N37P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From FTG · COTo O61 · Sacramento, CA
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While taking off on a cross-country flight, the aircraft became airborne but would neither climb nor accelerate. The aircraft weight was 3,670 pounds, which was approximately 100 pounds below maximum. The density altitude was 6,000 feet msl. The aircraft was equipped with manual turbochargers which were not being used. According to the operating instruction for the aircraft, the turbochargers should be used for high altitude takeoff to obtain the desired manifold pressure of 29.5 inches at 2,700 rpm. The engines were capable of producing only 23.5 inches of manifold pressure without the turbochargers engaged and this power was insufficient for climb at the weight and speed used.
Probable cause
the pilot-in-command's failure to use proper procedures and engage the turbochargers for takeoff from a high altitude airport. A factor was the high density altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96LA403
- Event ID
- 20001208X06743
- Case number
- FTW96LA403
- 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: 7f955740dfbdccaf4745c0f628c90113f2e0f434a77efcdc8d93225f3e8f547e; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:34:50.643Z.