LAX98LA283 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Truckee Tahoe Airport (TRK) to Portland Troutdale Airport (TTD)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98LA283
- 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-28-140
- 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
- N8772N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Truckee Tahoe Airport (TRK), Truckee, CATo Portland Troutdale Airport (TTD), Troutdale, OR
- 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)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Carburetor heat, not used
- Pilot in command › Mixture, improper use of
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot took off with twice the amount of fuel needed to fly to his next fuel stop. After takeoff the aircraft was not able to gain speed or altitude. He had not leaned the mixture and the aircraft performance continued to decrease so the pilot decided to turn back toward the airport. The aircraft began to stall and he nosed the aircraft into the ground to avoid hitting power lines and other nearby structures. The temperature at the time of the accident was reported as 63 degrees, dew point 61 degrees with a density altitude of 7,400 feet. The pilot reported that he had not attempted to use carburetor heat. He stated there was no mechanical malfunctions with the aircraft prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to use carburetor heat in temperature conditions conducive to carburetor icing and his failure to lean the engine in a high density altitude environment, which combined, led to a partial loss of engine power and the onset of a stall during the forced landing in rough uneven terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98LA283
- Event ID
- 20001211X11094
- Case number
- LAX98LA283
- 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: a9cef0cfc96b7e3ef8151381f4e081787d5ac81115b7398b60559c447cf37aef; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:41:51.617Z.