SEA98LA014 · Piper PA-18-150
Piper PA-18-150 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA98LA014
- 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-18-150
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-18
- 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
- N1668P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Fuel starvation; Tree(s)
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Fuel system, selector/valve › Closed
- Fuel system, selector/valve › False indication
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot removed the fuel selector valve handle assembly and had the placarded backing panel painted. During reinstallation, the pilot improperly placed the handle and pointer 90-degrees counterclockwise from the correct selector valve position. During the accident flight, the handle was placed in the right tank position indication, but the actual valve position was in the fuel shutoff position. The engine was subsequently starved of fuel and quit. The pilot initiated a forced landing onto wooded terrain and was seriously injured. Further exam of the valve revealed that it was improperly inspected by a mechanic, thus eliminating the detent function only. The engine fuel primer was found unlocked. Exam of the engine and airframe did not reveal any other preimpact mechanical discrepancies. The pilot had been denied a medical certificate due to an unexplained history of alcohol abuse. The FAA revoked the pilot's airman certificate for failure to provide blood test results from blood drawn after the accident.
Probable cause
The owner/pilot's failure to properly install the fuel selector valve after removal, subsequently leading to a false indication on the valve selector handle. This led to the pilot unintentionally closing the valve and starving the engine of fuel during the initial climb.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA98LA014
- Event ID
- 20001208X09246
- Case number
- SEA98LA014
- 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: 1b92b92787498dcb8b6e3c1d65db3a0e7257a546bec25247517cab75aa9d507b; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:44:57.678Z.