ATL98LA131 · Piper PA 22-150
Piper PA 22-150 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Kirk Air Base (T73) to 29J · ROCKHILL, SC
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL98LA131
- 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 22-150
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-22
- 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
- N8027D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kirk Air Base (T73)To 29J · ROCKHILL, SC
- 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
- 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
According to the pilot, during takeoff on runway 14, and at 200 feet above ground level, the 'engine went to idle as if the throttle had been pulled full out.' He stated that he pitched the airplane for a glide speed of 65 miles per hour. He switched from the right fuel tank to the left and applied carburetor heat. The pilot stated that the engine regained power and he climbed back to 200 feet. He turned back towards the runway and again power was lost. The pilot ditched the airplane into a lake. According to the FAA, examination of the airplane following its recovery from the lake found the left fuel tank damaged and empty, the fuel selector was on the left tank, the carburetor was cracked in half, and the right fuel tank was full of what appeared to be fuel and water. A review of weather data from the nearest reporting facility disclosed that conditions were favorable for the formation of carburetor ice. The out side air temperature was 70 degrees and the dew point was 64 degrees.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons. Factor were conditions favorable for the formation of carburetor ice..
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL98LA131
- Event ID
- 20001211X11008
- Case number
- ATL98LA131
- 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: b54853c597254b3bde8faf9eb0d8b2fb6eebaceb31e645414470b91b89de2907; retrieved 2026-09-22T16:42:04.537Z.