IAD03LA026 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: loss of engine power while maneuvering
From New Castle Municipal Airport (UCP) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD03LA026
- 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
- N573PA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From New Castle Municipal Airport (UCP), New Castle, PATo 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
- 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
- Throttle/power lever › Jammed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor and commercial pilot were practicing flight maneuvers, which required full and idle power settings. At the completion of one of the reduced power maneuvers, when the commercial pilot tried to apply power, the throttle was "completely jammed" in the idle position. The flight instructor was unable to maintain altitude, and elected to land at a private airstrip. In preparation to land, the pilot extended the flaps to 40 degrees, and maintained an approach speed of approximately 80 mph. Prior to reaching the end of the runway, the airplane encountered a high sink rate and collided with trees located about 50 feet from the end of the runway. Examination of the airplane revealed that the throttle bracket was crushed from the impact, and the throttle linkage was kinked. The linkage was still intact at the carburetor. The carburetor was removed to help free the throttle linkage. Once removed, the throttle linkage moved freely, and fuel sprayed from the accelerator pump. No fretting or rubbing of the throttle linkage was noted. The throttle quadrant was removed and examined, and no discrepancies were noted.
Probable cause
A jammed throttle control assembly for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD03LA026
- Event ID
- 20030211X00198
- Case number
- IAD03LA026
- 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: 749ebf2571e93f45a4130a862020e607c93d296ad80224825397a8d5c3b60f02; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:33:30.461Z.