LAX84FA118 · Piper PA28-235
Piper PA28-235 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From San Gabriel Valley Airport (EMT) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX84FA118
- 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 PA28-235
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA28
- 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
- N55665
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Gabriel Valley Airport (EMT), El Monte, CATo 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
- En route · cruise
- 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)
- 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 › Fuel tank selector position, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO THE FLT INSTR THE ENG LOST PWR AFTER THE STU HAD COMPLETD VAROUS TURNING MANEUVERS. HE STATED THAT THE FUEL SEL WAS IN THE LEFT MAIN POSITION AND ESTIMATED THAT THERE WERE 18 GALS IN THAT TANK, 25 GALS IN THE RIGHT TANK,5 GALS IN THE LEFT TIP TANK AND 1 GAL IN THE RIGHT TIP TANK. HE ALSO STATED THAT THE TIP TANKS HAD PURPOSELY NOT BEEN REFUELED RECENTLY BECAUSE THE OWNERS WANTED TO BURN OFF WHAT WAS LEFT IN THEM IN ORDER TO SERVICE THEM. DURING THE ENSUING FORCED LANDING THE MAIN GEAR WERE SHEARED OFF AND THE TIP TANKS WERE RUPTURED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX84FA118
- Event ID
- 20001214X45320
- Case number
- LAX84FA118
- 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: 6c56bf7541e8539e2616e05d7e5b65fbeddde077228d9a8041b5286bc0043a58; retrieved 2026-09-23T20:59:58.550Z.