LAX98LA241 · Piper PA-28R-200
Piper PA-28R-200 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From General William J Fox Airfield (WJF) to L15 · Henderson, NV
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98LA241
- 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-28R-200
- 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
- N222LC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From General William J Fox Airfield (WJF), Lancaster, CATo L15 · Henderson, NV
- 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 go-around
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While en route to the destination airport, the pilot noted the fuel flow gage was fluctuating and the engine began to run roughly. He switched to the backup electric fuel pump and the engine smoothed out. Shortly thereafter, the fuel flow gage again provided an intermittent reading. The pilot decided to make a precautionary landing at an alternate airport and overflew the field to check the windsock for wind direction. He reported that right at touchdown he noted a wind change to a tailwind and decided to abort the landing. He applied full power, but the engine did not respond. The airplane was landed straight ahead, overran the runway, and struck an elevated road. The pilot reported that prior to the flight, on the day of the accident, the airplane had been refueled. After fueling, he conducted a run-up and noted that the engine was sputtering. He taxied to a maintenance facility and asked them to inspect the aircraft. The maintenance facility found that the fuel injector nozzles were dirty. They cleaned and reinstalled them. The pilot conducted another run-up with no discrepancies noted and departed the airport. A postaccident engine test run and inspection were conducted with no anomalies noted. The fuel system was inspected, to include the fuel servo unit, with no discrepancies found.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98LA241
- Event ID
- 20001211X10639
- Case number
- LAX98LA241
- 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: 18c209f3564ebd9024f189b387b818ff6cadc7920ab0ff1a9c589627881feb62; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:21:28.801Z.