IAD01LA001 · Piper PA-22-160
Piper PA-22-160 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Grimes Airport (8N1) to Fox Hollow Airport (3PA6)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD01LA001
- 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-22-160
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-22
- 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
- N9697D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grimes Airport (8N1), BETHAL, PATo Fox Hollow Airport (3PA6), PA
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern base
- 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
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Upon entering the downwind leg of the traffic pattern, the airplane's engine started to misfire. The pilot applied carburetor heat and increased engine power to 1,500 RPM, but the engine continued to misfire. The pilot continued to increase engine power, but the engine's performance did not improve. On the base leg, the pilot turned off the carburetor heat, and reduced engine power to idle in preparation to land. At this point, the engine stopped producing power. The pilot made a shallow right turn and lined up with a field for an emergency landing. The pilot was aware of the row of power lines that preceded the field, and flew under them. However, the right main landing gear was sheared off after contacting a small tree. The airplane landed in the field and ground-looped. The airplane had a sufficient amount of fuel onboard, which was absent of debris and contamination. The engine was run on the airframe utilizing the airplane's own fuel system. The engine started immediately and ran normal. Examination of the airplane and engine revealed there were no mechanical malfunctions.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD01LA001
- Event ID
- 20001212X22165
- Case number
- IAD01LA001
- 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: 735293b44ca2fa9ad7f31dabac319fbeb617a82c8777fa29cae54dbcbb65180c; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:24:27.615Z.