MIA92LA129 · Piper PA-28-140
Gordon Air Services Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Miami Homestead General Aviation Airport (X51) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA92LA129
- 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
- N5830U
- Operator
- Gordon Air Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Miami Homestead General Aviation Airport (X51), Homestead, FLTo not recorded
- 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
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING CRUISE FLT, THE CFI MOVED THE FUEL SELECTOR FROM THE LT TO THE RT POSITION. THE ENG RPM THEN BEGAN FLUCTUATING. HE MOVED THE FUEL SELECTOR BACK & THE ENG BEGAN OPERATING NORMALLY BUT BEGAN LOSING POWER. WHILE DESCENDING DURING THE DARK NIGHT FOR A FORCED LANDING, THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH A BLACK NET COVERING A NURSERY & POLES SUPPORTING THE NET. EXAM OF THE COCKPIT REVEALED THAT THE FUEL SELECTOR WAS IN THE OFF POSITION. IT WAS NOT MOVED BY FIRE OR POLICE DEPT PERSONNEL. EXAM OF THE ACFT REVEALED THAT THE RT WING FUEL TANK FLEXIBLE LINE WHICH ATTACHES TO THE FUEL TANK, WAS PARTIALLY BLOCKED BY CONTAMINANT. THE LINE WAS MANUFACTURED IN 1969. ALSO, THE RT WING FUEL TANK & CARBURETOR FINGER SCREENS WERE PARTIALLY BLOCKED BY CONTAMINANT. ACCORDING TO NOTE NO.18 OF THE PIPER INSP CHECKLIST, THE FLEXIBLE FUEL LINE IS REQ'D TO BE REPLACED WHEN THE ENG IS OVERHAULED, WHICH OCCURRED IN 1984. THE CARBURETOR BOWL WAS DRAINED WHICH REVEALED THAT IT CONTAINED LESS THAN APPROXIMATELY 3 OUNCES OF FUEL. THE PAX STATED HE MOVED THE FUEL SELECTOR WITHOUT THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE CFI & HE WAS AT THE CONTROLS AT THE TIME OF THE LOSS OF ENG POWER.
Probable cause
TOTAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER DUE TO IMPROPER PLACEMENT OF THE FUEL SELECTOR BY THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND FOLLOWING PARTIAL LOSS OF ENGINE POWER DUE TO PARTIAL BLOCKAGE OF A FUEL LINE. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE DARK NIGHT CONDITION AND IMPROPER MAINTENANCE BY UNKNOWN PERSONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA92LA129
- Event ID
- 20001211X14713
- Case number
- MIA92LA129
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1992-05-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5fc949f024e19e354f012d98ca8cd975289b785f68a2d3b6ffd3bc5bda35d88c; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:16:32.483Z.