LAX00LA247 · Piper PA-32-260
Aero Flite Piper PA-32-260 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Rogers Field (O05) to 4SD · Reno, NV
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX00LA247
- 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-32-260
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N933AC
- Operator
- Aero Flite
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rogers Field (O05), CATo 4SD · Reno, NV
- 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
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The single engine aircraft lost power at 150 feet agl on takeoff climb and subsequently ditched in a lake off the end of the runway. The aircraft had four fuel tanks that could be individually selected to supply fuel to the engine. The pilot reported fueling the four tanks to capacity on the morning of the accident and then flying three unremarkable flights that consumed about 50 percent of the total fuel. He reported the airplane and engine flew fine and there was no indication of any developing problems with the engine. The pilot said the takeoff on which the accident occurred was routine, the engine was smooth and powerful, and all the instruments were in their normal operating ranges. The fuel selector was on the right tank and there was about 17 gallons fuel in that tank. When about 150 feet agl, he reduced the propeller rpm and, at that time, the engine started "cutting out." It never totally quit. He verified that the fuel boost pump was on, and recalled that the fuel pressure gauge and oil pressure gauge were in the green arc. He changed fuel tanks but had no more time to attempt to restart the engine before ditching. The second pilot reported that he believed the engine "picked up" again just before they ditched in the lake. Examination of the aircraft and engine after recovery from the lake failed to reveal any mechanical irregularity. The carburetor was lost in the lake during recovery and was not found.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX00LA247
- Event ID
- 20001212X21282
- Case number
- LAX00LA247
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2000-06-30.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 862902af10dfe4aec685dcc81dd29871e1c10905657a733dc691181b427a3a3e; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:10:43.931Z.