NYC99LA203 · Piper PA-28R-200
Piper PA-28R-200 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From 19N to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC99LA203
- 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-28R-200
- 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
- N2721R
- Operator
- Anil S. Iyer · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 19NTo 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 pattern turn to base
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Berlin, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported he had performed two full stop takeoffs and landings and was on base leg for his third landing when the engine lost power. He left the landing gear extended, checked the fuel selector, but did not move it, and landed in a clearing. The left wing struck a tree and ruptured the fuel tank. Emergency personnel reported no smell of fuel at the accident site. Fuel was found in the right tank, but there was no evidence of fuel in the left tank, nor was there evidence of a fuel spill on the ground. In addition a small amount of fuel was found in the line from the engine driven fuel pump to the fuel control unit, and no fuel was found in the line from the fuel control unit to the fuel injection manifold. Fuel system continuity was confirmed and no evidence of blockage was found. The fuel injection unit was found to flow rich at most settings. No problems were found with the electric auxiliary fuel pump or the engine driven fuel pump. The pilot reported he departed with full tanks and could not explain why there was no evidence of a fuel spill from the ruptured fuel tank.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for undetermined reason(s).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC99LA203
- Event ID
- 20001212X19630
- Case number
- NYC99LA203
- 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: 78401edd3a7affa4d22cac8f48b5896f3068244216c591ec152c29b1c7a057f3; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:25:53.902Z.