MIA03LA006 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Dr Hermenegildo Ortiz Quinones Airport (X63) to Patillas Airport (X64)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA03LA006
- 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
- N2838T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dr Hermenegildo Ortiz Quinones Airport (X63), Humacao, PRTo Patillas Airport (X64), Las Palmas, PR
- 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 go-around
- 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
- Partial 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, excessive
- Pilot in command › Checklist, not complied with
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
- Pilot in command › Proper touchdown point, not attained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Following a 30 minute flight from Humacao, Puerto Rico, the pilot's first attempt to land on runway 10 at Patillas Airport, Las Palmas, resulted in a go-around because the approach path was too high. During the go-around, at between 400 and 500 feet agl, the engine lost partial power, and the pilot elected to execute a quick course reversal and land on runway 28. The emergency approach and landing were fast and long, necessitating another go-around with whatever power was available. The pilot managed to over-fly the airport perimeter fence, but collided with the terrain on the other side of the fence, sustaining substantial damage to the aircraft. Postcrash examination of the aircraft revealed the fuel selector was selected to the right fuel tank, which was found empty. The pilot stated he had not switched tanks since takeoff.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to switch fuel tanks resulting in a partial loss of engine power due to fuel starvation during a go-around. Additionally, the pilot's failure to monitor airspeed and proper touchdown point during the emergency landing resulted in another go-around attempt with partial power and inadequate airspeed that caused a collision with a field off the end of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA03LA006
- Event ID
- 20021024X05380
- Case number
- MIA03LA006
- 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: fbb21ee11b3c97856f8d6a98b7f6b6ce93ce00bb4fc2c8c3f75f7929f9a2ce07; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:01:08.827Z.