DEN03FA038 · Piper PA-28R-200
Piper PA-28R-200 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From 2V2 · Longmont, CO to North Las Vegas Airport (VGT)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN03FA038
- 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
- 4 · 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
- N106AW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 2V2 · Longmont, COTo North Las Vegas Airport (VGT), Las Vegas, NV
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- 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 non-instrument rated private pilot (approximately 140 hours of flight experience) filed a night VFR flight plan [in a complex airplane] for 15,500 feet, a cruising airspeed of 140 knots, a time en route of 4 hours, and 8 hours of fuel onboard. The pilot did not have a complex airplane endorsement. The airplane was non pressurized, and no supplemental oxygen was onboard. The airplane manufacturer’s representative calculated the flight to require 5 hour, 25 minutes (with no wind), which was 25 minutes longer than the maximum estimated capability of the airplane. Radar data indicates that the pilot flew above 12,500 feet for 2 hours, 17 minutes, above 14,000 feet for 1 hours, 49 minutes, and at approximately 16,000 feet for an estimated 45 minutes. At approximately 3 hours and 40 minutes (352 nm) into the flight, the pilot declared a "Mayday." Radar data indicates that the airplane departed 14,800 feet, and descended through 9,800 feet at approximately 1,077 feet per minute. The radar data showed the airplane in a straight flight track until it descended below radar coverage; the airplane's impact ground scar of approximately 280 degrees was aligned with this flight track. The engine fuel burn calculations suggest that 10 to 15 gallons of fuel were in the airplane at the time of the accident. An examination of the wreckage showed the left wing attached to the fuselage and resting up hill. The cockpit area, forward fuselage, and right wing were broken, charred, and consumed by fire. The extent of thermal damage to the fuselage suggested that fuel assisted in the conflagration. An examination of the engine and other airplane systems revealed no anomalies.
Probable cause
the loss of engine power (total) due to fuel starvation, the pilot not following procedures/directives (fuel management procedures), and the pilot's inadequate preflight planning/preparation for the flight. Contributing factors were the pilot's inadequately equipping the airplane (lack of supplemental oxygen), the pilot's hypoxic physical impairment, and the pilot's total lack of experience in type of operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN03FA038
- Event ID
- 20030205X00165
- Case number
- DEN03FA038
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2003-01-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 66b9ae8a0d8d5793c0af2ed0cb69555193e5554ee17dd6b2af1e67e328c60aaf; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:30:35.620Z.