SEA98LA068 · Piper PA-28-160
Piper PA-28-160 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Harvey Field (S43) to O9S · Monroe, WA
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA98LA068
- 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-28-160
- 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
- N5157W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Harvey Field (S43), Snohomish, WATo O9S · Monroe, WA
- 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Pilot in command(cfi) › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Remedial action, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After the instructor simulated an engine failure by pulling out the mixture control until the engine shut down, the student attempted to maneuver for a landing at a paved private airstrip. Just after turning a close-in final, with the mixture still pulled out almost to the full-lean position, the student raised the aircraft's nose, and the propeller stopped turning. The instructor then returned the mixture control to the full rich position and instructed the student to engage the starter. After two unsuccessful attempts to get the engine to start, the student landed the aircraft in an area where the terrain had been torn up by construction workers. Just after touchdown, the aircraft impacted rough/uneven terrain and sustained substantial damage.
Probable cause
Fuel starvation due to the flight instructor's improper in-flight decision to simulate an engine failure by pulling the mixture control toward the lean position until the engine shut down, and his failure to return the mixture to the rich position until after the aircraft had reached a low altitude and the propeller had stopped turning. Factors include the rough/uneven terrain within the construction area in which the aircraft was landed.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA98LA068
- Event ID
- 20001211X10189
- Case number
- SEA98LA068
- 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: f0e3eecc93df5e5e3ace27770d1d8754173f9304b7d345001508a345dccb7064; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:50:04.220Z.