FTW86LA146 · Piper PA-28-R-180 PA-28-R-18
Piper PA-28-R-180 PA-28-R-18 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From West Houston Airport (IWS) to Sugar Land Regional Airport (SGR)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW86LA146
- 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-R-180 PA-28-R-18
- 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
- N3930T
- Operator
- George W. Roberts · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From West Houston Airport (IWS), Houston, TXTo Sugar Land Regional Airport (SGR), Houston, 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 · climb to 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Fuel system, strainer › Water
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
PRIVATE PILOT OF A PIPER PA-28R-180 DEPARTED RUNWAY 15 AT WEST HOUSTON AIRPORT (IWS), HOUSTON, TEXAS. PILOT STATED HE HAD DEPARTED RUNWAY 15 WHEN ENGINE QUIT AT APPROXIMATELY 600 FEET AGL. PILOT EXECUTED A FORCED LANDING APPROXIMATELY 2 MILES OFF THE DEPARTURE END OF RUNWAY. PILOT STATED HE FAILED TO DEACTIVATE THE AUTOMATIC GEAR LOWERING FEATURE OF THE AIRCRAFT WHICH RESULTED IN A FORCED LANDING INTO AN UNIMPROVED AREA WITH ALL THREE LANDING GEARS DOWN AND LOCKED. AIRCRAFT SUSTAINED SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE. NOSE GEAR SHEARED AND BOTH MAIN GEARS WERE FORCED UPWARD INTO THE WING STRUCTURES. THE PILOT AND ONE PASSENGER ONBOARD THE AIRCRAFT WERE UNINJURED. PILOT STATED HE TOOK ON 27 GALLONS OF LOW LEAD AVIATION FUEL AT WEST HOUSTON AIRPORT AND HAD DRAINED FUEL SAMPLES FROM WING TANK SUMPS AND GASOLATOR AND FOUND NO WATER PRESENT. HOWEVER, INVESTIGATION OF THE AIRCRAFT SUBSEQUENT TO THE ACCIDENT REVEALED SOME WATER PRESENT IN THE GASOLATOR. VISUAL METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS PREVAILED AT THE TIME.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW86LA146
- Event ID
- 20001213X34484
- Case number
- FTW86LA146
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 0dd6862c3f74a983d3da591aa154883a27e674c59e5c0f256f31cf9d24f2b0fd; retrieved 2026-09-23T14:09:53.238Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. The narrative states the pilot "DEPARTED RUNWAY 15 AT WEST HOUSTON AIRPORT (IWS), HOUSTON, TEXAS"; the recorded code GWS does not match the named airport.