FTW88LA070 · Piper PA-22-108
Piper PA-22-108 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From E35 to Lucky Star Ranch Airport (TX04)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW88LA070
- 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-22-108
- 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
- N5542Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From E35To Lucky Star Ranch Airport (TX04), El Paso, 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
- En route · cruise
- 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)
- 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 contamination
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Contamination
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT REPORTED THAT THE ENG RAN ROUGH ON A PREVIOUS FLT AND HE REMOVED, CLEANED, AND REPLACED THE SPARK PLUGS. HE THEN TOOK OFF AND AT A POINT SEVEN MILES FROM THE DEPARTURE ARPT, THE ENG AGAIN BEGAN TO RUN ROUGH AND INTERMITTENTLY. AN EMERGENCY LANDING BECAME NECESSARY AND DURING THE LANDING IN ROUGH TERRAIN, THE NOSE GEAR BROKE, RESULTING IN DAMAGE TO THE FUSELAGE. AN FAA INSPECTOR EXAMINED THE WRECKAGE AND DID NOT FIND ANY EVIDENCE TO EXPLAIN THE REPORTED POWER LOSS. IN HIS REPORT OF THE ACCIDENT, THE PLT STATES THAT RUBBER PARTICLES, POSSIBLY FROM FUEL LINES, WERE FOUND IN THE FUEL. THE ACFT WAS BEING OPERATED ON AUTO FUEL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW88LA070
- Event ID
- 20001213X25085
- Case number
- FTW88LA070
- 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: a8efff8c36ee0769d4fdd98b6146e1d6aca21273199acc30bf3e0275639f858e; retrieved 2026-09-23T10:58:17.862Z.