DEN99LA020 · Piper PA-28-161
Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Northern Colorado Regional Airport (FNL) to Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN99LA020
- 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-28-161
- 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
- N8236Z
- Operator
- John H. Malkin · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Northern Colorado Regional Airport (FNL), Loveland, COTo Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC), Broomfield, CO
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Electrical system, electric wiring › Shorted
- Fuel system, line › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he could not start the engine, and he requested assistance. A battery cart was brought out, and the engine was jump started. While airborne, the pilot smelled something like ether, and decided to land the airplane. He said that the smell got stronger and the engine began to run rough. While taxing off the runway, he smelled raw fuel and saw smoke. After he evacuated the airplane, he saw flames coming from the pilot's side of the engine (aft of the firewall) and the wing root area. A piper representative stated that 'a dead or depleted aircraft battery should not be charged in the aircraft.' This information was not available in the POH. The Service Bulletin #836A had not been performed, and the original aluminum battery cable had not been replaced by a copper battery cable. Representatives from Piper and Gill (the battery manufacturer) said that the aluminum battery cable's resistance increases with age, flight time, and flight cycles. The airplane had accumulated an estimated 18,000 hours of flight time. The fuel lines and the battery cable are 4 to 6 inches apart in the vicinity of the fuel selector. This is the same area where the pilot first observed the fire.
Probable cause
The shorting of the aluminum battery wire and the subsequent failure of the fuel line. Factors were the weak/deteriorated battery, the insufficient information in the airplane's POH about charging an airplane's battery, and the fire in the crew compartment.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN99LA020
- Event ID
- 20001211X11411
- Case number
- DEN99LA020
- 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: 2ab5800168f403a244e77ada1cab6934bcc46544c60fa4254df6742790e18e6f; retrieved 2026-09-22T16:21:17.126Z.