SEA82FA117 · Piper PA-28-161
Seattle Flight Service Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) while maneuvering
From BF1 · Seattle, WA to Bremerton National Airport (PWT)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA82FA117
- 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
- 1 · 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 PA-28-161
- 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
- N2146Y
- Operator
- Seattle Flight Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From BF1 · Seattle, WATo Bremerton National Airport (PWT), Bremerton, WA
- 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; 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, improper
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, inattentive
- Pilot in command › Impairment(alcohol)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT, ENROLLED IN A COURSE FOR A COMMERCIAL PILOT CERTIFICATE, WAS SCHEDULED FOR A SOLO FLIGHT FROM SEATTLE TO BREMERTON, WASHINGTON AND RETURN. HE DEPARTED AT ABOUT 1300 PDT. AT ABOUT 1635 PDT, RESIDENTS NEAR THE CRASH SITE REPORTED THAT THEY SAW AND HEARD A LOW FLYING AIRCRAFT CIRCLE THE AREA SEVERAL TIMES, THEN CRASH. ONE WITNESS REPORTED THE ENGINE WAS SPUTTERING AS THE PLANE PASSED OVER HIS HOUSE. THE PLANE CRASHED IN A WOODED AREA. THE LEFT WING WAS TORN FROM THE FUSELAGE, BUT A WITNESS REPORTED FUEL LEAKING FROM THE LEFT TANK. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE FUEL SELECTOR WAS POSITIONED TO THE RIGHT TANK AND THE PLANE HAD FLOWN 3 TO 5 HRS. BASED ON THE FLIGHT MANUAL, THE PLANE WOULD HAVE USED 21 TO 31 GALLONS OF FUEL. THE CAPACITY OF EACH TANK WAS 24 USABLE GALLONS. A TOXICOLOGICAL TEST OF THE PILOT'S BLOOD REVEALED AN ALCOHOL LEVEL OF .303%. THE POLICE AND MEDICAL PERSONNEL STATED THAT THE PILOT'S SEAT BELT WAS NOT FASTENED WHEN THEY ARRIVED AT THE CRASH SITE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA82FA117
- Event ID
- 20020917X04157
- Case number
- SEA82FA117
- 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: a42c4a546ba3973221e85915d4b01dfd024acec150de8e51db4f20d958d2c5c4; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:05:00.275Z.