LAX01LA033 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Buchanan Field (CCR) to Livermore Municipal Airport (LVK)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX01LA033
- 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
- N9986W
- Operator
- Behram Irani
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Buchanan Field (CCR), Concord, CATo Livermore Municipal Airport (LVK)
- 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 · IFR initial approach
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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 › Lack of familiarity with aircraft
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After making a forced landing in an open field due to a loss of engine power, the airplane sustained substantial damage when it collided with a berm. The purpose of the flight was for the first pilot to gain more experience flying the airplane, as he was not familiar with it. He had asked one of the part owners of the airplane to act as his safety pilot during the flight because he was going to practice IFR procedures. During an ILS-localizer approach, the first pilot inadvertently switched the fuel selector handle to the "OFF" position. The engine lost power. The first pilot was unable to move the fuel selector back to its original position. The safety pilot took control of the airplane, declared an emergency, and landed the airplane. The first pilot informed the responding police officer that he believed the fuel selector positions were "LEFT-OFF-RIGHT." The actual positions of the fuel selector were "OFF-LEFT-RIGHT." The officer observed the fuel selector handle pointing towards the "OFF" position. The fuel selector handle was examined. It was difficult to move, as if there was not enough lubrication on it, but it functioned properly.
Probable cause
The pilot's lack of familiarity with the airplane's fuel system. This lead to the pilot inadvertently switching the fuel selector handle to the "OFF" position and subsequently to a loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX01LA033
- Event ID
- 20001212X22299
- Case number
- LAX01LA033
- 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: b1b957671b1dcb1c1a0dacd28ce6aa4c68a1d8ec8c14db0bfbb0f78843a3e5bf; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:20:30.037Z.