SEA83LA145 · Piper PA-18-125
Piper PA-18-125 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Downey/Hyde Memorial Airport (U58) to Pocatello Regional Airport (PIH)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA83LA145
- 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-18-125
- 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
- N1144A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Downey/Hyde Memorial Airport (U58), Downey, IDTo Pocatello Regional Airport (PIH), Pocatello, ID
- 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 · descent
- 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 contamination
- 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 › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT NOSED OVER DURING A FORCED LANDING AFTER A POWER LOSS. THE PILOT STATED THAT DURING A DESCENT TO AN ARPT THE ENGINE SUDDENLY LOST POWER. EMERGENCY START PROCEDURES FAILED AND A FORCED LANDING WAS MADE IN A GRAIN FIELD. DURING ROLL OUT THE ACFT NOSED OVER. THE PILOT SAID THAT AFTER THE ACCIDENT HE FOUND A DIRTY FUEL SCREEN AND THE ACFT HAD SAT ON THE GROUND FOR A WEEK AND A HALF WITH THE TANKS ONLY 1/2 FULL OF FUEL. HE FOUND WATER IN THE FUEL AFTER THE ACCIDENT. HE DRAINED SOME FUEL PRIOR TO TAKEOFF, BUT HAD NOT USED A STRAINER TO VISUALLY CHECK FOR WATER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA83LA145
- Event ID
- 20001214X43550
- Case number
- SEA83LA145
- 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 1983-06-25.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 75609ebde75ab4eef1e494d8bc71c8b50e8dff2dfd844ea2c87a2ba08ba114a5; retrieved 2026-09-23T21:56:00.681Z.