DEN01LA016 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From U42 · Salt Lake City, UT to Wendover Airport (ENV)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN01LA016
- 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-28-140
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N6355R
- Operator
- Dale B. Mackay · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From U42 · Salt Lake City, UTTo Wendover Airport (ENV), UT
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Partial 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
- Terrain condition › Berm
- Terrain condition › None suitable
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While on a cross-country flight, the pilot initiated descent for arrival at his destination by reducing power. When he added power at the completion of the descent, the engine failed to respond and an off airport landing was made to unsuitable terrain. At the time the temperature was 34, the dew point 21, and skies were clear. The pilot's operating handbook did not contain a carburetor-icing chart and the procedures directed the pilot to use carburetor heat "as required." According to information developed by the Canadian Ministry of Transport, the temperature/dew point were in the carburetor icing range for both cruise and idle power and carburetor heat must be applied whenever power is reduced to provide adequate anti-icing protection.
Probable cause
a forced landing to unsuitable terrain due to a loss of engine power as a result of carburetor icing. Factors were insufficient weather information regarding carburetor icing in the pilot's operating handbook for the aircraft and delay by the pilot in applying carburetor heat.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN01LA016
- Event ID
- 20001212X22281
- Case number
- DEN01LA016
- 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: 4109fed33742feef2818a62900a39bb71cf124beb2013a6c0c177ffa26773260; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:02:39.126Z.