CHI98LA054 · Piper PA-34-200T
Piper PA-34-200T · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From K84 · MO to K84
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI98LA054
- 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-34-200T
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-34
- 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
- N8189P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From K84 · MOTo K84
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Engine shutdown, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported taking off during gusty wind conditions on a dark night. He said that shortly after liftoff, the airplane '...veered sharply to the left... .' The pilot said he applied full right rudder and aileron to maintain a '...somewhat level...' attitude. He said the airplane flew through the tops of trees before it collided with the ground, while he was maneuvering to return to the airport. The investigation revealed that the left engine's propeller was not feathered, and the landing gear was in the DOWN position. No mechanical anomalies were found with the engine or airframe that would have prevented flight. The left engine magneto switches were found in the OFF position. The landing light switches were ON. The magneto switch guard cover's self-erecting springs were broken allowing the guard cover to cover the landing light switches instead of the magneto switches.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate remedial action concerning the loss of engine power, after inadvertently switching off the magnetos. Factors relating to the accident were: the broken springs for magneto cover guard; excessive drag from the extended landing gear and unfeathered propeller; and failure of the pilot to maintain runway alignment after loss of engine power; all of which subsequenlty led to a failure (or inability) to remain clear of obstructions (trees).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI98LA054
- Event ID
- 20001208X09270
- Case number
- CHI98LA054
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1997-12-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 558a48c0e1180cf02704a648da5d3fb631894de6cae71d14a608bde243d9d873; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:43:10.709Z.