FTW00LA205 · Piper PA-23-160
Piper PA-23-160 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From 67R to David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW00LA205
- 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-23-160
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N4322P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 67RTo David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH), Spring, TX
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a cross-country flight, on the day prior to the accident, the airplane experienced a total electrical failure. The pilot made a precautionary landing at an airport, where he had the battery charged. However, the electrical problem was not repaired prior to departing on the day of the accident. After lift-off from the runway, the landing gear was retracted, and the pilot began a left turn. While in the turn, about 300-400 feet agl, the left engine lost power. Subsequently, the right engine lost power. The pilot executed a forced landing to a field with brush and mesquite trees. The airplane had been inspected 6 days before the accident by an FAA inspector, who issued an Aircraft Condition Notice for maintenance defects, which were considered to be an imminent hazard to safety. A special flight permit was required prior to operating the aircraft if corrective action had not been taken. An examination of the airplane revealed that the maintenance defects were not corrected, and a special flight permit had not been obtained. The reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
the loss of engine power for undetermined reasons. Contributing factors were the pilot flying the airplane with known deficiencies, and the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW00LA205
- Event ID
- 20001212X21461
- Case number
- FTW00LA205
- 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: 7d41a5872bad3b14fe714110d6d8dcf0ced35e0e6d8cfd7f9c03c836c46ac48b; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:41:55.797Z.