NYC92LA060 · Piper PA-22-20
Piper PA-22-20 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to 98B · Belfast, ME
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC92LA060
- 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-22-20
- 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
- N36142
- Operator
- Floyd Watts
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 98B · Belfast, ME
- 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)
- 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
- Fuel contamination; Stall
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Contamination
- Fluid, fuel › Ice
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Isle Au Haut, ME, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF FROM AN ICE COVERED LAKE, THE ENGINE LOST POWER. THE PILOT MADE A TURN TO AVOID GOING INTO THE OCEAN AND STALLED THE AIRPLANE ONTO THE ICE. THE PILOT SAID HE USED CARBURETOR HEAT PRIOR TO TAKEOFF. THE EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE BY THE FAA REVEALED 'WATER STILL REMAINING IN THE GAS BOWL AND ALSO IN THE CARBURETOR...AND DEAD BUG DEBRIS FROM THE FUEL LINE ELBOW.
Probable cause
FUEL SYSTEM ICING AND CONTAMINATION WHICH RESULTED IN A LOSS OF ENGINE POWER AND SUBSEQUENT STALL AND LOSS OF CONTROL DURING A FORCED LANDING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC92LA060
- Event ID
- 20001211X14172
- Case number
- NYC92LA060
- 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: 82221d929c71a27bffa6b7c405612803cc9af3404fd0285593a41cb4fc99160b; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:06:59.650Z.