FTW90FA077 · Piper PA-24-180
Piper PA-24-180 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Dublin Municipal Airport (9F0)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW90FA077
- 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
- 2 · 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-24-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N5354P
- Operator
- Rufus C. Cain · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Dublin Municipal Airport (9F0), Dublin, TX
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER LIFTOFF, THE AIRPLANE APPEARED TO STOP CLIMBING AT ABOUT 90-100 FT AGL; ITS WINGS ROCKED SIDE-TO-SIDE, AND IT THEN PITCHED NOSE DOWN INTO THE GROUND. THE ENGINE WAS HEARD UNTIL IMPACT. MIXTURE CONTROL FOUND IN FULL RICH POSITION; DENSITY ALTITUDE APRX 5,000 FT. OIL STAIN FOUND NEAR PROP GOVERNOR; AD 90-04-06 AND LYCOMING SB NO. 488, PROP GOV LINE & ELBOW FITTING, NCW. ENGINE TEARDOWN SHOWED PROP GOV SCREEN BLOCKED WITH NUMEROUS CONTAMINANTS; METALLIC FLAKES ON OIL FILTER; CARB BODY DIRTY; CARB FLOAT ATTACH PIN WORN; PLUGS SHOWED RICH FUEL CONDITION; MAG TIMING 3 DEG OFF; INTAKE/EXHAUST ROCKER ARMS IMPROPERLY INSTALLED; PISTON RINGS WORN BEYOND LIFE LIMITS; NO.2 CYL TOP RING BROKEN; NUMEROUS ROD CAPS & BEARINGS INSTALLED BACKWARDS; ALL CRANK PINS WORN BEYOND SERVICE LIMITS; ALL MAIN BEARINGS WORN BEYOND SERVICE LIMITS. SERIAL NUMBER ON DATA PLATE DID NOT MATCH CASE NUMBER OF THE ENGINE. AIRPLANE WAS PURCHASED 1/23/90 BY THE PILOT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED DURING A TAKEOFF WITH LESS THAN FULL POWER RESULTING IN A STALL. CONTRIBUTING FACTORS WERE THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO LEAN THE MIXTURE TO COMPENSATE FOR THE HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE, AND THE GROSS IMPROPER, INADEQUATE MAINTENANCE THAT HAD BEEN PERFORMED ON THE ENGINE RESULTING IN AN UNAIRWORTHY ENGINE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW90FA077
- Event ID
- 20001212X22713
- Case number
- FTW90FA077
- 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: dceec9444554ce3c1643aa65a26fb623bb06e36f41225bff8a1b46eaefac74f2; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:55:33.654Z.