LAX97LA163 · Piper PA-28R-201T PA-28R-201
Piper PA-28R-201T PA-28R-201 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Royan-Médis Airport (RYN) to Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97LA163
- 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-28R-201T PA-28R-201
- 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
- N2847F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Royan-Médis Airport (RYN)To Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD), Chandler, AZ
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, inadequate
- Engine assembly, valve, intake › Jammed
- Engine assembly, valve, intake › Overtemperature
- Fuel system, injector › Blocked(partial)
- Fuel system, injector › Output low
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
At 300 feet agl in the takeoff initial climb the engine ran roughly for a moment, then smoothed out for a short time at a low power output. The pilot stated that the engine power was insufficient for flight, and, he did not feel that he had sufficient altitude or vehicle energy to return to the runway. The pilot therefore elected to land on a dirt road. The right wing contacted trees during the landing rollout. An engine overhaul was completed on April 3, 1997, and it was reinstalled on the airframe on April 17th, 2 hours prior to the accident. The overhaul facility performed work on only the core engine. The operator's maintenance facility reinstalled all accessories, including all fuel system components, on the engine prior to installing it on the airframe. External visual examination of the engine noted blistered, missing, and discolored paint on the No. 2 cylinder, which had no compression. No valve lash was observed at the No. 2 cylinder intake valve, and air leakage was noted from that area. Exhaust gas residue was noted in all intake tubes during their removal from the engine. The No. 2 cylinder bottom spark plug electrode was damaged, with deposits of what appeared to be molten metal particles. The plugs for cylinders 1, 3, and 4 exhibited sooting. All fuel injection nozzles, including the No. 2 cylinder, were unobstructed. Bench flow tests confirmed normal postaccident flows for the distributor, nozzles, and lines. The No. 2 cylinder was removed from the engine. The piston and combustion chamber were burned. The intake valve stem and back face were burned, and the head was distorted into a tulip configuration. The valve length was stretched. No other internal abnormalities were noted with the engine.
Probable cause
The partial blockage of the No. 2 cylinder injection line/nozzle by a transient contaminant, which induced an excessively lean mixture in that cylinder, and the subsequent overheating of the cylinder and intake valve. The engine power loss was due to the open intake valve allowing hot exhaust gasses into the induction system. The contamination was due to inadequate installation/inspection procedures used by the operator's maintenance organization when the fuel system was reinstalled on the engine following the overhaul.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97LA163
- Event ID
- 20001208X07758
- Case number
- LAX97LA163
- 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: 408217ae1328664a914175b76b1d0d356b42fdb5f53c814f5d66cbc714517100; retrieved 2026-09-22T19:56:05.609Z.