LAX83LA251 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Gillespie Field (SEE)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX83LA251
- 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-28-180
- 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
- N4964L
- Operator
- Richard Wheelock
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Gillespie Field (SEE), San Diego, CA
- 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aborted takeoff, delayed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Aguanga, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH AN ABANDONED AUTO DURING AN ABORTED TAKEOFF. THE PILOT SAID HE APPLIED FULL POWER DURING TAKEOFF AND ACCELERATED TO ABOUT 85 MPH AND ROTATED. AT ABOUT 15 FT AGL THE ENGINE SEEMED TO LOSE POWER. THE PILOT SAID THE ENGINE DID NOT SPUTTER OR KNOCK IT JUST FAILED TO PRODUCE ITS CUSTOMARY POWER. THE PILOT THEN ABORTED HIS TAKEOFF AND LANDED IN AN OPEN AREA BESIDE THE RWY. DURING LANDING HIS RIGHT WING GRAZED AN UNOCCUPIED CAR. AFTER THE ACFT CAME TO REST THE ENGINE CONTINUED TO RUN AND THE PILOT STATED HE WAS ABLE TO TAXI BACK TO THE ARPT PARKING AREA. DAMAGE TO THE CAR WAS MINOR. UPON EXAMINATION AND TESTING NO REASON COULD BE FOUND FOR THE ENGINE NOT TO OPERATE NORMALLY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX83LA251
- Event ID
- 20001214X43061
- Case number
- LAX83LA251
- 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: 347f4462f0cc93d3004f7be6594d888ced815bd9a2f8d88f4cd85b36733759d7; retrieved 2026-09-23T22:11:02.202Z.