LAX01LA299 · Piper PA-28-235
Piper PA-28-235 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Carson Airport (CXP) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX01LA299
- 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-28-235
- 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
- N9199W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Carson Airport (CXP), Carson City, NVTo 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
- Approach · VFR pattern base
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, incorrect
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
As the airplane returned to the airport after a local flight at twilight, the pilot completed the landing checklist as the airplane approached the 45-degree leg. The pilot intended to move the fuel selector handle from the right tip tank position, across two intermediate tank positions, to the left tip tank position. The next position further to the left is the "off" position, which is guarded by a spring-loaded mechanical stop. In the wreckage the mechanical stop was found attached to a plastic cover over the fuel selector; however, the cover was broken from the selector handle assembly. Because of turbulent flight conditions, the pilot entered the downwind leg at the uncontrolled airport about 1,000 feet high and descended on extended downwind leg at near idle power. When he advanced the throttle to arrest the airplane's descent on extended base leg, there was no response from the engine. The fuel pressure read "zero." He attempted to restart the engine and switched the fuel selector to another tank position; however, insufficient altitude remained to afford sufficient time to restart the engine. The aircraft impacted a tree and crashed in the back yard of a residence, striking an occupant of the residence who was in the yard. The morning after the accident there was no fuel in the fuel lines forward of the firewall; however, the aircraft had been inverted overnight. About 2.5 ounces of fuel was found in the carburetor float bowl. When the fuel selector handle was positioned between tanks, the investigation showed each of the adjacent ports was about 10-percent open. Examination of the airplane revealed the annual inspection was 1-month overdue; however, it did not reveal any evidence of preimpact mechanical failure.
Probable cause
The pilot's incorrect setting of the fuel selector valve during the prelanding checklist to a position between usable tanks, resulting in fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX01LA299
- Event ID
- 20010906X01885
- Case number
- LAX01LA299
- 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 2001-09-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3a5403c3a244104d7051fb3904221d4e25f716033d0bd573dd1654cda5049de7; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:51:21.043Z.