NYC98LA032 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: loss of engine power during takeoff
From 7G8 to Little River Airport (FL10)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC98LA032
- 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-28-140
- 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
- N1816J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 7G8To Little River Airport (FL10), MC ALPIN, FL
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- 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
- Wire, static
- 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
During the initial climb after a normal takeoff, the airplane experienced a gradual loss of engine power. While turning to avoid some houses, the airplane struck power lines and impacted terrain. Examination of the log books revealed this was the airplane's first flight since an annual inspection had been completed. At that time, the airplane's carburetor was removed, disassembled and it's two piece venturi was replaced with a one piece venturi, per Precision Airmotive Service Bulletin # MSA-2. Also, the airplane had not been flown for over a month prior to the accident. On-scene examination of the airplane did not reveal any evidence of a preimpact failure of the airframe or engine. An engine run-up and a carburetor tear-down and flow check did not disclose any evidence of malfunction. Automotive gasoline was being used as fuel per a Supplemental Type Certificate. At an airport about 21 miles southeast of the accident site, the wind was reported to be from 200 degrees at 11 gusting 17 knots. The temperature and dew point were reported to be 34 and 23 degrees, respectively. According to icing probability charts, conditions were conducive to possible carburetor icing; however, carburetor icing was not verified. The pilot had checked the carburetor heat before takeoff, but did not report engaging it after the engine started losing power.
Probable cause
loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC98LA032
- Event ID
- 20001208X09239
- Case number
- NYC98LA032
- 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: 8102bda76e05e0de5fa28fde9fbb480b0b65f7d5e2df5927e94a4e4b71b6c550; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:43:55.841Z.