FTW00LA022 · Piper PA-28R-200
Piper PA-28R-200 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From George R Carr Memorial Air Field (BXA) to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW00LA022
- 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
- N2654T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From George R Carr Memorial Air Field (BXA)To Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY), New Orleans, LA
- 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
- 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 contamination; 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
- Fluid, fuel › Contamination, water
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the preflight inspection, the pilot drained '1/2 inch of water' from the fuel strainer. He continued sumping fuel until water was no longer present and then departed from runway 36. He turned crosswind at 500 feet agl, reduced the throttle to 25 inches of manifold pressure, and the engine began to 'run rough.' The pilot banked the airplane toward the airport, and while descending through 700 feet agl, the engine lost total power. During the ensuing forced landing, the airplane impacted pine trees and a fence and came to rest upright 1/2 mile north of the airport. An examination of the fuel system by an NTSB investigator revealed that the electric fuel pump contained corrosion (in the form of a white residue). Corrosion was also noted around the airframe fuel strainer attach point and within the fuel control servo. Furthermore, three tablespoons of water were drained from within the fuel servo.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power as a result of water contamination in the fuel system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW00LA022
- Event ID
- 20001212X19964
- Case number
- FTW00LA022
- 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: d38437fe99c5448c21f03f92ac5bef7bc691252b676b4ccbd8fb2ff7e14dfa00; retrieved 2026-09-22T13:45:43.124Z.