LAX03LA015 · Piper PA-28-161
Falcon Executive Aviation Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From Falcon Field (FFZ) to Falcon Field (FFZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03LA015
- 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-28-161
- 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
- N4332W
- Operator
- Falcon Executive Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Falcon Field (FFZ), Mesa, AZTo Falcon Field (FFZ), Mesa, AZ
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane collided with a tree during a forced landing at an abandoned airstrip. A certified flight instructor and a student were performing a practice engine failure maneuver at an abandoned airstrip with a 1,500-foot-long by 50-foot-wide landing area. About 500 feet above ground level, the instructor terminated the maneuver and told the student to make a go-around and abort the simulated maneuver. The student manipulated the throttle control to the full power position, but left the carburetor heat control in the "on" position. The instructor said the engine did not respond to throttle input. The instructor assumed the controls and maneuvered to complete the landing on the abandoned airstrip below but inadvertently overshot the intended landing surface. While maneuvering the airplane back to the airstrip, the airplane's left wing collided with a tree. Post accident examination of the airframe systems, the engine, and a test run of the engine found no anomalies or failures that would have precluded the engine from operating normally.
Probable cause
a loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03LA015
- Event ID
- 20021024X05382
- Case number
- LAX03LA015
- 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: c3d2d617e742468ef511e540330d0e8c98a12ae85759bde4516d5f922d7ceee9; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:01:54.715Z.