ANC98LA123 · Piper PA-14
Piper PA-14 · Accident: loss of engine power during takeoff
From Hector Silva Airstrip (BCV) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC98LA123
- 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-14
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-14
- 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
- N4214H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hector Silva Airstrip (BCV)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
- Takeoff
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot departed on a local flight in a tailwheel equipped airplane. He reported that he had completed three, solo, touch-and-go landings, after which a passenger boarded the airplane for a local area flight. He stated that while departing runway 19, all engine power was lost, and that he did not have sufficient altitude to return to the runway. He said that he made a forced landing in trees bordering the runway. In the pilot's written statement to the NTSB, he reported that when the flight originated, the right main fuel tank was full, and the left main fuel tank was about one-quarter full. Both auxiliary fuel tanks were empty, and not in use at the time of the accident. The pilot stated that the entire flight was accomplished with the fuel selector valve on the right main tank. A pilot-rated police officer that responded to the initial accident call, arrived on scene about 15 minutes after the accident. He reported that upon his arrival, the left main fuel tank was 'dry', and the right fuel tank appeared to be full. He added that the main fuel selector valve had been placed in the 'off' position prior to his arrival. The police officer said that the pilot had closed the fuel valve prior to exiting the airplane.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for an undetermined reason.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC98LA123
- Event ID
- 20001211X10744
- Case number
- ANC98LA123
- 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 1998-08-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e49b0c1a182dbe3cd7d1358653a23d865cec6d679d051ad428b28b24451c8760; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:42:43.430Z.