ATL97LA065 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Douglas Municipal Gene Chambers Airport (DQH) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL97LA065
- 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-28-180
- 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
- N4979L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Douglas Municipal Gene Chambers Airport (DQH), Douglas, GATo 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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)
- 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 passenger/pilot stated that they had about ten minutes of ground operation before the non certificated pilot attempted the takeoff. During the ground operation the non certificated pilot completed a runup, but the passenger was not sure of the complete extent of the carburetor heat check. As the airplane climbed through 400 feet, the engine suddenly quit. The non certificated pilot selected an open field and attempted a forced landing. The airplane touched down in a freshly plowed field about 100 yards left of the departure end of the runway 27. During the examination of the airplane, approximately eight gallons of fuel were recovered from the right fuel tank; no fuel was recovered from the left fuel tank. No mechanical problems were discovered during the wreckage examination. A review of weather data disclosed that conditions were favorable for the formation of carburetor ice. The fuel selector was placed on the right fuel tank before starting the takeoff roll. The non-certificated pilot did not have a current third class medical certificate.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons. Factors were, conditions were favorable for the formation of carburetor ice, and the pilot lack of qualification for the flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL97LA065
- Event ID
- 20001208X07668
- Case number
- ATL97LA065
- 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: 2afeb47230bc003e9bb328aa0194d48c62c6d5b1f50b9fb63b573a948c10586f; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:07:50.571Z.