ATL91LA179 · Piper PA-28-140
Carolyn'S Flight Academy Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL91LA179
- 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
- N8728N
- Operator
- Carolyn'S Flight Academy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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 (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 starvation
- 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
- Dual student › Fuel tank selector position, improper
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Greenville, SC, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PILOT AND CFI HAD RETURNED TO THE AIRPORT, WHERE THE STUDENT WAS TO PRACTICE SOME TOUCH AND GO LANDINGS. ON DOWNWIND LEG, THE STUDENT PERFORMED A BEFORE LANDING CHECK, WHICH INCLUDED SWITCHING FUEL TANKS FROM LEFT TO RIGHT. DURING THE GO-AROUND FOLLOWING THE FIRST LANDING, THE ENGINE QUIT, RESTARTED, THEN QUIT AGAIN. THE CFI TOOK OVER THE CONTROLS AND FORCE LANDED THE AIRPLANE IN A PARKING LOT AT THE AIRPORT. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRCRAFT REVEALED THAT THE FUEL SELECTOR HANDLE WAS IN THE 12 O'CLOCK POSITION, OR BETWEEN THE LEFT AND RIGHT TANK POSITIONS. A THOROUGH EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE AND AIRFRAME REVEALED NO EVIDENCE OF MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE. THE CFI HAD ONLY 36 HOURS AS A FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR, INCLUDING 6 HOURS IN THIS MODEL.
Probable cause
THE DUAL STUDENT'S IMPROPER POSITIONING OF THE FUEL TANK SELECTOR HANDLE, AND THE CFI'S INADEQUATE SUPERVISION OF HER STUDENT. A FACTOR IN THIS ACCIDENT WAS: THE CFI'S LACK OF EXPERIENCE AS A FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL91LA179
- Event ID
- 20001212X18029
- Case number
- ATL91LA179
- 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: 579d137c886b27977c5c58129cf1a998eb4da7ac8ff3092320f162c0bafb24d6; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:26:06.254Z.