ATL98LA052 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Fayetteville Regional Airport - Grannis Field (FAY) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL98LA052
- 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-28-180
- 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
- N1404T
- Operator
- Lawrence Smith
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fayetteville Regional Airport - Grannis Field (FAY), Fayetteville, NCTo 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
- Approach
- 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
- 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 › Contamination, other than water
- Fuel system, line › Blocked(total)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, he made five or six touch-and-go landings on runway 4, then switched from the right fuel tank to the left fuel tank. The airplane appeared to continue running normally until after he turned onto his final approach. When he attempted to make a power adjustment by advancing the throttle on final approach, the engine did not respond. The pilot switched fuel tanks and turned on the electric boost pump, but there was no change in engine response. The pilot then made an emergency landing in an unprepared area about one mile south of the airport and was damaged. According to an FAA inspector, he examined the engine and determined everything appeared normal. He then examined the carburetor and found fuel. The gascolator bowl had no fuel in it. After finding fuel in both fuel tanks, the FAA inspector examined the fuel lines for blockage. He discovered rubber shavings in the left main fuel supply line which were obstructing fuel flow from the left tank.
Probable cause
fuel system contamination (rubber shavings), which led to blockage of a fuel line, fuel starvation, loss of engine power, and a collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL98LA052
- Event ID
- 20001211X09520
- Case number
- ATL98LA052
- 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: a054b34591a27fc0bd431a01ff77803814bd23378cd65f536d05f287092082a9; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:55:58.672Z.