DEN89LA214 · Piper PA-18A-150
Piper PA-18A-150 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From 1E3 to Chloride Airport (NM51)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN89LA214
- 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-18A-150
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-18
- 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
- N9496D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 1E3To Chloride Airport (NM51), Edgewood, NM
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Fuel system, carburetor float › Deteriorated
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT LEANED THE MIXTURE & TOOK OFF ON RWY 30, A HIGH ALT DIRT STRIP WITH A 3.8% UPHILL GRADIENT. WINDS WERE FROM THE NNW AT ABT 14 KTS. AT APRX 200' TO 300' AGL, THE ENG BEGAN TO LOSE POWER. THE ACFT SETTLED & CRASHED ON ROCKY TERRAIN AS THE PLT WAS AVOIDING TREES. FIRE CONSUMED THE ACFT. A TEARDOWN OF THE MARVEL-SCHEBLER MA4-SPA CARB REVEALED IT CONTAINED A COMPOSITE FLOAT (WHICH WAS DETERIORATED), PART OF THE FLOAT TOE WAS MISSING & THE NEEDLE VALVE WAS STUCK. THE VALVE & SEAT WERE COVERED WITH A SOFT/STICKY SUBSTANCE & THE INLET FILTER SCREEN WAS ALMOST ENTIRELY BLOCKED BY FOREIGN DEBRIS. AN STC HAD BEEN ISSUED FOR N9496D, WHICH ALLOWED USE OF AUTO FUEL.
Probable cause
DETERIORATED CARBURETOR FLOAT. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE AND THE TERRAIN CONDITIONS IN THE EMERGENCY LANDING AREA.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN89LA214
- Event ID
- 20001213X29352
- Case number
- DEN89LA214
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1989-09-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1290504ef94e982a0bf7c9a6402f2e3cc6199f68348ebb2a10bd108a24fdea64; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:49:34.110Z.