MIA97LA104 · Piper PA-28-181
Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Albert Whitted Airport (SPG) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA97LA104
- 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-28-181
- 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
- N109LD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albert Whitted Airport (SPG), ST PETERSBURG, FLTo 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
The pilot noticed he was low on final approach and added power. When he advanced the throttle he said 'there was no power.' He observed that the engine RPM was 'low.' He then attempted to 'operate the throttle,' switched fuel tanks, and still had no power. The pilot could not maintain altitude, so elected to land short of the runway on grass. As the airplane touched down in the grass, the main landing gear caught a ditch, continued on the grass for about 100 yards, veered left, and the wing struck a fence post. According to the FAA inspector's statement; '...the first time the pilot stated he turned on the boost pump, reduced throttle and turned base on final. [The] pilot realized [the] approach would be short. He applied throttle with no engine response.' The second time the pilot was asked to recount the events, the pilot added, 'I applied carb heat.' Fuel was found in both tanks, the fuel selector was selected to the 'Right' tank, and fuel was found in the gascolator. The engine was test run and no discrepancies were found.
Probable cause
a loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA97LA104
- Event ID
- 20001208X07602
- Case number
- MIA97LA104
- 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: 8596d4fd801065608c38d7b39a42972afbb8af2f0221f25aa4a1b29cc1c1a5b4; retrieved 2026-09-22T20:05:05.683Z.