CHI99LA256 · Piper PA-31-350
Piper PA-31-350 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Salina Municipal Airport (SLN) to Mc Pherson Airport (MPR)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI99LA256
- 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-31-350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N97MA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salina Municipal Airport (SLN)To Mc Pherson Airport (MPR), McPherson, KS
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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 exhaustion
- 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 › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that aircraft electrical power was not available during the preflight inspection. The pilot reported that the engines were started utilizing a ground power unit, and that aircraft electrical power could not be restored after the ground power unit was separated from the aircraft. The pilot reported that after liftoff he could not move the gear selection lever to the 'UP' position and that the left engine began to, '...surge and loose power. Reduced power on the left engine, engine continued to surge. Switched fuel selector for left engine to [the] left outboard fuel tank. Left engine continued to surge.' The pilot elected to land, straight ahead, into a field of wheat stubble. Fuel quantity present, at the post-accident inspection, for the inboard fuel tanks, was less than the unusable fuel amount as listed in the Pilot's Operating Handbook (POH). Fuel quantity present, at the post-accident inspection, for the outboard fuel tanks, was 1-2 gallons per tank more than the POH reported unusable fuel amount. The POH states that the outboard fuel tanks are to be utilized during level flight only. All four of the fuel tanks were intact, with no apparent leaks or ruptures, and there was no evidence of a fuel spill at the accident site. According the POH, the electrical driven fuel boost pumps, '...are operated continuously and are provided to maintain fuel under pressure to the other fuel pumps....' The POH further states that the electrical driven emergency fuel pumps are utilized, '...during takeoff and landing, and for priming the engines.' According to the Piper Service Manual for the PA-31-350, the gear selection lever, '...cannot be moved to [the] gear up [position] while left main gear strut is compressed or with power off.'
Probable cause
the inadequate preflight inspection by the pilot. Factors to the accident were fuel exhaustion and the operation of the aircraft with known deficiencies in equipment by the pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI99LA256
- Event ID
- 20001212X19214
- Case number
- CHI99LA256
- 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: 63c045d49d5b92af84edcaa1e7e7719ffeb979c9b9d7f8c12507521c99bbb755; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:27:19.126Z.