ATL98LA026 · Piper PA-22-108
Piper PA-22-108 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From NC (private airstrip) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL98LA026
- 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-22-108
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-22
- 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
- N5258Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From NC (private airstrip)To 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
- Partial 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated he filled only the left fuel tank when he refueled the previous night. Before takeoff, he checked the fuel and 'determined' there was approximately 11 gallons in the left tank. He took off from the airport and climbed to about 400 feet where the engine began to sputter. The pilot stated he then looked for a suitable landing field, and made a forced landing. During the forced landing, the airplane encountered rough terrain and was damaged. According to an FAA inspector, who interviewed the pilot, the pilot stated that he believed the right fuel tank had been selected. The pilot believed he switched to the left fuel tank prior to the engine failure, but he could not be certain. According to the Pilot's Operating Handbook and the pilot, takeoffs must be made with the fuel selector in the left position.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper preflight inspection by failing to ensure the fuel selector was properly positioned, which led to fuel starvation, loss of engine power, and a forced landing on rough/uneven terrain. The lack of suitable terrain for a forced landing was a related factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL98LA026
- Event ID
- 20001208X09262
- Case number
- ATL98LA026
- 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: a7cd0e32205c35690faa0a475c573ae849065f8b74215862801e1d79954e257b; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:41:37.907Z.