LAX00LA264 · Piper PA-38-112
Golden Eagle Enterprises Piper PA-38-112 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Selma Airport (0Q4) to Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX00LA264
- 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-38-112
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-38
- 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
- N2466D
- Operator
- Golden Eagle Enterprises
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Selma Airport (0Q4)To Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT), Fresno, CA
- 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 (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Fuel supply › Restricted
- Fuel system, selector/valve › Cracked
- Fuel system, selector/valve › Movement restricted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a touch-and-go takeoff the student pilot switched the fuel selector to the opposite tank, and the engine quit. The CFI took the controls and made an off-airport landing in a vineyard at the departure end of the runway. During the on-scene inspection of the airframe, a functional check of the fuel system was conducted. When the master switch was engaged and the electric boost pump placed in the ON position, it was noted that the pump was working, but there was no fuel pressure observed or fuel found in the gascolator. An inspection was then conducted on the fuel selector valve. After removal, the valve was found in-between the left and right port openings, and the fuel valve control rod could not be turned manually. The plastic fuel selector handle was removed and found cracked. The brass insert that is housed in the fuel selector handle and attaches to the fuel valve control rod would not engage completely inside the plastic handle. There were no previous signs of cracks in the plastic fuel selector handle.
Probable cause
A cracked plastic fuel selector handle that precluded proper engagement of the internal mechanism to fully select a port, and left it in an intermediate position, restricting the fuel supply to the engine, which subsequently lead to a loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX00LA264
- Event ID
- 20001212X21508
- Case number
- LAX00LA264
- 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: cdb780cd726f64f6dc3e0f05ff7d7d6435ea60bf9f6bd6ce0d112e5941489b1d; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:42:02.246Z.