LAX83LA432 · Piper PA23-150
Piper PA23-150 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX83LA432
- 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 PA23-150
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA23
- 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
- N2180P
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT & INSTRUCTOR (CFI) WERE PRACTICING TOUCH & GO LANDINGS. DURING TAKEOFF FROM THE 4TH TOUCH & GO, THE LEFT ENG LOST POWER WHILE CLIMBING THRU ABOUT 200 FT AGL. THE CFI TOOK CONTROL OF THE ACFT. AT ABOUT THE SAME TIME, THE STUDENT SAW OIL COMING FROM THE LEFT ENG. THE CFI FEATHERED THE LEFT ENG, & AT THAT TIME, THE ACFT WAS VIBRATING & INDICATING 100 MPH. THE CFI LOWERED THE NOSE TO MAINTAIN THE BEST SINGLE ENG RATE OF CLIMB SPEED. HOWEVER, AT THAT SPEED, THE ACFT WAS IN A DESCENT. THE CFI CONTINUED OVER ROUGH TERRAIN TOWARD POWER LINES UNTIL HE REALIZED THE ACFT WOULD NOT CONTINUE TO FLY, THEN TURNED TO THE MOST SUITABLE TERRAIN & CRASH LANDED. AN EXAM OF THE LEFT ENG REVEALED A BROKEN OIL COOLER LINE. HOWEVER, 4 QTS OF OIL WAS STILL REMAINING & THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE THAT THE LOSS OF OIL HAD CAUSED THE ENG FAILURE. THE SPARK PLUGS WERE HEAVILY SOOTED, WHICH WAS INDICATIVE OF AN EXTREMELY RICH MIXTURE. ROUGH SPOTS WERE FOUND ON THE CARBURETOR FLOAT CHAMBER NEEDLE VLV, WHICH REPORTEDLY COULD HAVE ALLOWED THE VLV TO STICK OPEN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX83LA432
- Event ID
- 20001214X44592
- Case number
- LAX83LA432
- 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: 4041b273fb9446ac5d29a9b7459ebf9fa3c0c72bf0327ed242e01ed50fe70d27; retrieved 2026-09-22T02:29:52.145Z.