MIA98LA144 · Piper PA-18
Advertising Air Force Piper PA-18 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Albert Whitted Airport (SPG) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA98LA144
- 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
- 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
- N225NY
- Operator
- Advertising Air Force
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albert Whitted Airport (SPG)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
- Stall
- 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
- Company/operator management › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, poor
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Before takeoff, the pilot performed an engine run-up and noted after removing carburetor heat, that the handle was 'loose.' During the initial climb, the engine experienced a partial loss of power and black smoke was noted coming from the exhaust. While maneuvering to return, the airplane stalled and crashed into water. Examination of the engine revealed no mechanical failure or malfunction. The carburetor heat control cable was found to be separated from the carburetor heat control arm assembly. Disassembly of the carburetor revealed evidence of previous fuel leakage from the carburetor bowl vent which would introduce extra fuel into the air induction system. Also, the adjustment tab of the metal float and the head of the float needle valve were determined to be worn. The carburetor was installed on the engine on June 3, 1996, and had accumulated 1,246 hours since installation at the time of the accident. The accepted procedure after removing carburetor heat is to note that the engine rpm's increase either to the setting before the heat was applied, or to a greater rpm is carburetor ice was present. The worn condition of the carburetor was known for the past 7 years, according to the pilot.
Probable cause
The intentional operation of the airplane by the pilot and the company/operator with the known deficiencies in equipment (worn carburetor). Also, the poor preflight planning by the pilot for his failure to recognize that the carburetor heat control was inadvertently activated on takeoff and his inadvertent stall of the airplane while turning to reverse direction. Contributing to the accident was the separation of the carburetor heat control cable.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA98LA144
- Event ID
- 20001211X09928
- Case number
- MIA98LA144
- 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: 37f11264d84a42645ae1ad6a07fdbacb7b024f576ad7197482702bd3654ed74d; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:51:03.248Z.