NYC03LA096 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Orange County Airport (MGJ) to New York Stewart International Airport (SWF)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC03LA096
- 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-28-180
- 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
- N55854
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Orange County Airport (MGJ), Montgomery, NYTo New York Stewart International Airport (SWF), Newburgh, NY
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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)
- 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
- Fuel system, line fitting › Loose
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, 100-hour inspection, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the nighttime departure, the airplane accelerated normally, with the engine producing full power during the takeoff roll and initial climb. Upon reaching approximately 300 to 400 feet above the ground, the engine began to lose power. The CFI took the flight controls and performed a forced landing. During the landing rollout, the airplane rolled through a shallow drainage swale, collapsing the nose and right main gear assemblies. The airplane rotated to the right and came to rest upright. Examination of the wreckage revealed that the fuel line, which ran between the fuel pump and the carburetor, was loose at the connection point on the carburetor. When the electric fuel pump was activated, fuel was observed spraying from the connection point. The airplane had accumulated about 20 hours of operation since a 100-hour inspection was performed 10 days prior to the accident. According to 14 CFR Part 43 Appendix D - Scope and Detail of Items (as Applicable to the Particular Aircraft) To Be Included in Annual and 100 Hour Inspections, "Each person performing an annual or 100 hour inspection shall inspect (where applicable) components of the engine and nacelle group..."
Probable cause
The inadequate 100-hour inspection by maintenance personnel, which resulted in a loose fuel line and loss of power. A factor related to the accident was the dark night conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC03LA096
- Event ID
- 20030514X00657
- Case number
- NYC03LA096
- 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 2003-05-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5d85ac7c73f613d1e2be40caac962ba54446f28a726e638f3f114b4e5dc8a269; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:19:36.147Z.