CHI90LA126 · Piper PA28-140
Piper PA28-140 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI90LA126
- 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 PA28-140
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA28
- 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
- N6369W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT WHILE ON FINAL APPROACH AT ABOUT 200 TO 300 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND, THE AIRCRAFT ENGINE BEGAN TO LOSE POWER. THE AIRCRAFT TOUCHED DOWN ON THE EDGE OF A DITCH ON AIRPORT PROPERTY, SHORT OF THE LANDING RUNWAY. POST-ACCIDENT EXAMINATION OF THE AIRCRAFT ENGINE AND SYSTEMS REVEALED NO EVIDENCE OF MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION, AND AN ENGINE RUN-UP WAS SUCCESSFUL. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE 'PROBABLY COULD HAVE GOT IT RESTARTED...BUT I ONLY HAD 200 FEET OF ALTITUDE. I PUMPED THE THROTTLE AND THAT PROBABLY JUST MADE IT WORSE...(I SHOULD HAVE) JUST LEFT IT WIDE OPEN, IT MIGHT HAVE RESTARTED.' HE REPORTED THAT HE HAD FLOWN THE AIRCRAFT 1.5 HOURS SINCE HE PURCHASED IT; PRIOR TO THAT IT HAD NOT FLOWN FOR ABOUT A YEAR. HE ALSO STATED THAT THE PREVIOUS OWNER HAD AUTOMOTIVE FUEL IN THE FUEL SYSTEM.
Probable cause
TOTAL FAILURE OF THE POWERPLANT DURING THE FINAL APPROACH FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI90LA126
- Event ID
- 20001212X22889
- Case number
- CHI90LA126
- 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: a9c431f993d07dbf22f33223dd96d8c20a8ed69315dcd780ed9807fa1cbf0379; retrieved 2026-09-23T06:27:04.871Z.