CHI85LA001 · Piper PA-23-250
Piper PA-23-250 · Accident: fire while taxiing
From Saint Paul Downtown Holman Field (STP) to 02Y · Greenbush, MN
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI85LA001
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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-23-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N37JL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Saint Paul Downtown Holman Field (STP), ST. PAUL, MNTo 02Y · Greenbush, MN
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Taxi · from runway
- 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
- Fire
- 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 › Undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
FOLLOWING AN UNEVENTFUL APPROACH AND LANDING, THE PLT WAS TAXIING BACK UP THE RUNWAY WHEN THE RIGHT ENGINE QUIT. THE RIGHT SEAT PASSENGER IMMEDIATELY NOTED FLAMES COMING FROM THE ENGINE AND NOTIFIED THE PLT, WHO SWUNG THE ACFT INTO POSITON FOR WIND TO KEEP FLAMES FROM THE WING WHILE SECURING BOTH ENGINE FUEL SHUT-OFF VALVES, HEATER FUEL SHUT-OFF AND THE ACFT ELECTRICAL SYSTEM. PLT ORDERED EVACUATION AND ATTEMPTED TO EXTINGUISH FIRE WITH HAND-HELD EXTINGUISHER. FIRE CONTINUED TO BURN FOR ABOUT 15 MINUTES UNTIL LOCAL FIRE DEPT PUT OUT FLAMES. DAMAGE PRECLUDED DETERMINATION OF FIRE SOURCE, BELIEVED TO BE A BROKEN LINE OR SEPARATED FITTING IN THE ENGINE FUEL SYSTEM WHICH ALLOWES A QUANTITY OF FUEL TO COLLECT IN THE NACELLE BEFORE ENGINE QUIT FROM FUEL STARVATION, FIRE IGNITED, AND PLT CLOSED SHUT-OFF VALVE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI85LA001
- Event ID
- 20001214X41302
- Case number
- CHI85LA001
- 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: 2cb5d3522b51f2141f9780a36d47ed905df96df67d3c95528487965f2a2d3a5e; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:36:25.643Z.