CHI83LA312 · J. Roberts PITTS SPECIAL PITTS SPEC
J. Roberts PITTS SPECIAL PITTS SPEC · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI83LA312
- 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
J. Roberts PITTS SPECIAL PITTS SPEC
- Aircraft type
- J Roberts PITTS SPECIAL
- 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
- N3144
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER A TOUCH-AND-GO LANDING, THE ACFT WAS CLIMBING THRU APRX 100 FT AGL WHEN THE ENG ABRUPTLY LOST POWER. A STRAIGHT AHEAD LANDING WAS NOT FEASIBLE. WHILE THE PLT WAS MANEUVERING TO LAND, THE ACFT IMPACTED IN A RIGHT WING LOW, NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE FUEL TANK WAS APRX 3/4 FULL WITH A MIXTURE OF ABOUT EQUAL AMOUNTS OF AUTOMOTIVE & AVIATION (100 LL) FUEL. ABOUT 1 OZ OF FUEL WAS FOUND IN THE CARBURETOR BOWL, BUT NO EVIDENCE OF FUEL WAS FOUND IN THE LINE LEADING FROM THE ENG DRIVEN FUEL PUMP TO THE CARBURETOR. DAMAGE TO THE FIREWALL PREVENTED AN ACCURATE DUPLICATION OF THE FUEL CONTROL TRAVEL LIMITS AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT. THE PROP CONTROL WAS HARD TO OPERATE, BUT THE PLT SAID THAT IT HAD ALWAYS BEEN THAT WAY. NO OTHER DISCREPANCIES WERE EVIDENT. THE POSSIBILITY OF FUEL BLOCKAGE, BY VAPOR LOCK, COULD NOT BE DISCOUNTED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI83LA312
- Event ID
- 20001214X43674
- Case number
- CHI83LA312
- 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 1983-07-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 709141e1c684e33a8d02de532d8fcd24547b3ec37a24c8a598c4950a9347c8d3; retrieved 2026-09-21T17:52:31.044Z.