MIA99LA221 · Piper PA-28-181
Greenville Aviation FLT School Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Wayne Executive Jetport (GWW) to Greenville Downtown Airport (GMU)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA99LA221
- 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-28-181
- 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
- N82974
- Operator
- Greenville Aviation FLT School
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wayne Executive Jetport (GWW), Goldsboro, NCTo Greenville Downtown Airport (GMU)
- 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 pattern final
- 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
- Pilot in command › Altitude, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Greenville, SC, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The flight departed with full fuel tanks and the fuel selector was positioned briefly to the left tank using only 2-3 gallons of fuel; the remainder of the flight the fuel selector was positioned to the right tank. The flight was cleared to land from a left base leg and while on short final approach, with the flaps extended 20 degrees, he added power but the engine did not respond. Attempts to restart the engine were unsuccessful. He cycled the fuel pump switch and fuel pressure decreased to zero. He declared a mayday and unable to land on the runway, collided with an embankment short of the displaced threshold. The left wing separated from the airplane during the impact sequence. Post accident examination of the airplane revealed only approximately 2 ounces of fuel drained from the intact right wing fuel tank. The left wing fuel tank was found to contain approximately 9 gallons. Fuel was added to the right wing fuel tank and the engine was started and operated to 800 rpm; damage to the propeller precluded operation to a higher rpm. Examination of the fuel vent system, fuel quantity indication system revealed no evidence of preimpact failure or malfunction.
Probable cause
The improper position of the fuel selector by the pilot-in-command resulting in the loss of engine power due to fuel starvation. Also, the inadequate altitude flown by the pilot on final approach preventing a landing on the runway following the loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA99LA221
- Event ID
- 20001212X19590
- Case number
- MIA99LA221
- 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: 43f10293651961377142258fba20a951c36ce92edd7947476abe993bc84d4da0; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:26:36.601Z.