ATL02LA123 · Piper PA-28R-200
Piper PA-28R-200 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From Gwinnett County Briscoe Field (LZU) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL02LA123
- 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-28R-200
- 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
- N15143
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gwinnett County Briscoe Field (LZU), Lawrenceville, GATo 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
- Maneuvering
- 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)
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was practicing steep turns at 3,000 feet MSL and pulled the power back to descend. At 2,100 feet MSL, the pilot added power, but there was no change in performance in the airplane. The pilot established glide airspeed toward a field and completed the emergency procedures, but engine power did not return. The airplane touched down in the field and sank deeply into the wet, plowed soil, and the left wing struck an irrigation sprinkler. Examination of the wreckage revealed the left main gear was collapsed, the nosewheel was separated, and the left wing sustained crush damage. Fuel leaked from the damaged wing and was contained by emergency response personnel; approximately 5 to 6 gallons was recovered from the left tank and 3 to 4 gallons was recovered from the right tank. The engine was examined and ran with no evidence of mechanical malfunction nor abnormalities. The Piper Cherokee II Information Manual states in Section 7-1, Operating Tips, Item 15: "The shape of the wing fuel tanks is such that in certain (flight) maneuvers fuel may move away from the tank outlet. If the outlet is uncovered, the fuel flow will be interrupted and a temporary loss of power may result."
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to follow operational procedures for the airplane, which resulted in a loss of engine power due to fuel starvation/fuel flow interruption. A factor was the lack of suitable terrain, resulting in a collision with an irrigation sprinkler during forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL02LA123
- Event ID
- 20020620X00934
- Case number
- ATL02LA123
- 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, coordinates. 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: 2ac1ccb313cbfe1b85029952e3373169f0981310bb99c1e1fc5285db25222037; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:50:05.993Z.