NYC00FA240 · Piper PA-44-180
Piper PA-44-180 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Essex County Airport (CDW) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC00FA240
- 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-44-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-44
- 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
- N2159Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Essex County Airport (CDW), Caldwell, NJTo 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
- En route · cruise
- 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)
- 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
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Lake Hopatcong, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
While at 3,000 feet with both engines operating at cruise power, the instructor induced an engine failure by moving the left fuel-selector to 'OFF.' The student asked the instructor if he wanted him to 'shut down the engine.' The instructor answered no. The student then verbalized the necessary steps for securing an engine, finishing with 'right engine to crossfeed.' After a couple of minutes, the instructor noticed that the right fuel selector was actually between 'OFF' and 'CROSSFEED.' The instructor returned the left and right fuel selectors to 'ON,' and approximately 30 to 40 seconds later both engines lost power. Several unsuccessful restarts were attempted, and the instructed executed a forced landing to a lake. The airplane touched down and both occupants exited under their own power. The airplane was recovered and both engine were examined and then run. During the examination and engine runs, no preimpact failures or malfunctions were identified. In addition, each fuel selector had three position, 'ON,' 'OFF,' and 'CROSSFEED.' To move a selector from 'ON' to 'CROSSFEED,' the selector had to be moved aft through the 'OFF' position.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's improper placement of both fuel-selector switches, which resulted in a total loss of engine power on both engines.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC00FA240
- Event ID
- 20001212X21825
- Case number
- NYC00FA240
- 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: 808a44ba1a041047f3b3dfe5995dde6f89a178f9c35a2824f1bc7f86e2189122; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:28:33.763Z.