LAX91FA232 · Piper PA-23
Piper PA-23 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Glendale Municipal Airport (GEU) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91FA232
- 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
- 2 · 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-23
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N1237P
- Operator
- Robert Tichy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Glendale Municipal Airport (GEU), Glendale, AZTo 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vs), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Judgment, poor
- Pilot in command › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment, intentional
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Maricopa, AZ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE CERTIFICATED PRIVATE PILOT AND A PASSENGER DEPARTED IN A TWIN ENGINE AIRPLANE ON A LOCAL FLIGHT AND WERE REPORTED OVERDUE. WITNESSES INDICATED THAT THE LEFT ENGINE WAS NOT PRODUCING FULL POWER. THE AIRPLANE WAS LOCATED THE FOLLOWING DAY ABOUT 22 MILES FROM THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT. BOTH OCCUPANTS WERE FATALLY INJURED. THE INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE AIRPLANE WAS UNAIRWORTHY. THE LEFT ENGINE PRIMER WAS NOT LOCKED AND AUTOMOTIVE GASOLINE WAS UTILIZED IN THE AIRPLANE. THE PILOT INTENTIONALLY SECURED THE ENGINES AND FEATHERED THE PROPELLERS. THE AIRPLANE STRUCK THE GROUND WITH LITTLE FORWARD SPEED, AT A HIGH VERTICAL DESCENT RATE, IN A NOSE DOWN AND NEAR WINGS LEVEL ATTITUDE. THE PILOT DID NOT POSSESS A CURRENT MEDICAL CERTIFICATE OR A MULTIENGINE RATING. THE PILOT'S RECENCY OF EXPERIENCE COULD NOT BE DETERMINED. TOXICOLOGICAL TESTING REVEALED THAT THE PILOT AND PASSENGER HAD ALCOHOL PRESENT IN THEIR BLOOD.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S POOR JUDGEMENT IN THE OPERATION OF THE AIRPLANE WITH KNOWN DEFICIENCIES AND THE INADVERTENT STALL DURING A FORCED LANDING. THE PILOT/OWNERS LACK OF MAINTENANCE ON THE AIRPLANE AND THE PILOT'S IMPAIRMENT BY ALCOHOL WERE FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91FA232
- Event ID
- 20001212X17024
- Case number
- LAX91FA232
- 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 1991-06-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7df9ca5a7f21be2f897b6c0a985dcb3f07157b3828ec556c95e7fe6f55311791; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:47:38.234Z.