FTW84FA126 · Piper PA-30B
Piper PA-30B · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From F53 · Hugo, OK to Ada Regional Airport (ADH)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW84FA126
- 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
- 1 · 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-30B
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-30
- 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
- N1VE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From F53 · Hugo, OKTo Ada Regional Airport (ADH), ADA, OK
- 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
- Total 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 starvation
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Aircraft handling, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vmc), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Fuel system, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO WITNESSES, THE ACFT WAS HAVING SOME KIND OF PROBLEM AFTER TAKEOFF. IT ENTERED A NOSE HIGH ATTITUDE, WENT TO THE RIGHT & CRASHED. AN EXAM REVEALED THAT IT HAD IMPACTED IN A NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE. THE LANDING GEAR WAS FOUND IN A DOWN & LOCKED POSITION. THE LEFT PROP WAS TWISTED & CURLED, OPPOSITE TO THE DIRECTION OF ROTATION & ITS BLADES HAD CHORDWISE SCRATCHES FROM GROUND IMPACT. THE RIGHT PROP HAD NO SIGNS OF ROTATIONAL DAMAGE & IT WAS NOT FEATHERED. ABOUT 40 GALS OF FUEL WERE FOUND IN THE LEFT TANKS. THE RIGHT FUEL TANKS CONTAINED VIRTUALLY NO FUEL: THEY WERE NOT RUPTURED. THE PLT HAD NO MULTI-ENGINE RATING. HIS LOGBOOK HAD NO ENTRIES TO SHOW DUAL MULTI-ENGINE INSTRUCTION NOR COMPLIANCE WITH A BIENNIAL FLT REVIEW. THE ACFT WAS EQUIPPED WITH A ROBERTSON STOL KIT, STC SA-2313-WE, WHICH INCREASED ITS GROSS WT TO 3800 LBS. THE LAST ANNUAL INSPECTION WAS ON 1/10/83.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW84FA126
- Event ID
- 20001214X38767
- Case number
- FTW84FA126
- 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: 541daf2a8f4b1015a2f392a07935ee6879b7b476c051ed17fad73f9c40bad7bd; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:40:17.840Z.