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MIA01LA219 · Piper PA-28-140

17 Aug 2001 · Wilgrove, NC, United States

Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during landing

From 8A6 · Wilgrove, NC to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
MIA01LA219
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
Unknown
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-28-140

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
N1453T
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From 8A6 · Wilgrove, NCTo 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
Landing · aborted
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
Airframe, component or system failure
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
Tree(s)
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

  • Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
  • Throttle/power lever, cable › Disconnected

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

According to the pilot, the aircraft underwent an annual inspection on August 2, 2001. One of the tasks performed was the removal and replacement of the oil pump impellers, and the throttle linkage must be disconnected to expedite the job. Nine-tenths of a flight hour and seven takeoffs after returning the aircraft to service, the throttle would not respond to the pilot's input while in the landing pattern. The pilot executed a partial power go-around, and the aircraft crashed into trees at the end of the runway. Wreckage examination revealed the throttle cable disconnected at the carburetor, and no drilled bolt, castellated nut or locking cotter pin that forms the throttle cable-to-carburetor connection was found. The pilot mentioned that since the annual inspection, he detected a slight detent in the throttle motion at about 1,100 rpm engine speed, but failed to mention it to the mechanic. The FAA certified IA who signed off the work stated he was 99.9 per cent certain the attaching hardware was correctly installed.

Probable cause

The failure of maintenance personal to properly reconnect the throttle-cable-to carburetor attachment, resulting in a throttle cable disconnection while in the landing pattern, and collision with trees. A factor in the accident was the failure of the pilot to obtain maintenance assistance once unfamiliar throttle action was detected.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record MIA01LA219
Event ID
20010828X01798
Case number
MIA01LA219
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: a4caeba68ade50489e923550655d1677ec1318a4e5fc8345311a39b80e606fec; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:38:49.061Z.