BFO93LA021 · Piper PA-22-108
Piper PA-22-108 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Knox County Regional Airport (RKD) to Linden Airport (LDJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO93LA021
- 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-22-108
- 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
- CFAXE
- Operator
- Thomas Power
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Knox County Regional Airport (RKD), Rockland, METo Linden Airport (LDJ), Linden, NJ
- 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
- 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
- Induction air control, air filter/screen › Blocked(partial)
- Pilot in command › Carburetor heat, disregarded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING CRUISE, AT AN ALTITUDE OF ABOUT 700 FEET AGL, THE AIRPLANE'S ENGINE STARTED TO SPUTTER AND LOSE POWER. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE SWITCHED TANKS FROM THE LEFT FUEL TANK TO THE RIGHT FUEL TANK, AND ABOUT 15 MINUTES LATER THE AIRPLANE CONTINUED TO LOSE POWER. HE STATED HE TRIED TO SWITCH FUEL TANKS AGAIN, BUT THE ENGINE DID NOT RESPOND AND HE COULD NOT MAINTAIN THE AIRPLANE'S ALTITUDE AND WAS FORCED TO DITCH. HE STATED THAT THE ENGINE NEVER LOST TOTAL POWER. AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT, IT WAS LIGHTLY SNOWING. THE OUTSIDE AIR TEMPERATURE WAS 32 DEGREES F AND THE DEW POINT WAS 29 DEGREES F. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE DID NOT REVEAL ANY MECHANICAL MALFUNCTIONS. THE FUEL TANK SELECTOR WAS FOUND SELECTED TO THE LEFT FUEL TANK. THE LEFT FUEL TANK WAS EMPTY AND THE RIGHT FUEL TANK HAD AN UNDETERMINED AMOUNT OF FUEL IN IT. THE CARBURETOR HEAT CONTROL WAS FOUND IN THE 'COLD' POSITION. AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT, ACCORDING TO THE ICING PROBABILITY CURVES, CONDITIONS FAVORABLE TO THE FORMATION OF INDUCTION SYSTEM ICING EXISTED. THE PILOT STATED IN THE RECOMMENDATIONS SECTION OF THE PILOT REPORT, '...PULL THE CARB HEAT...CARB ICE SHOULD BE GIVEN MORE EMPHASIS IN TRAINING....'
Probable cause
THE PARTIAL POWER LOSS DUE TO INDUCTION SYSTEM ICING AND THE PILOTS FAILURE TO APPLY CARBURETOR HEAT DURING WEATHER CONDUCIVE TO INDUCTION SYSTEM ICING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO93LA021
- Event ID
- 20001211X11658
- Case number
- BFO93LA021
- 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: b852e873864ce95366457565df75f24e161098cc1777f3e3355700d97459de26; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:03:09.294Z.