CHI03LA125 · Piper J3C-65
Piper J3C-65 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Chicago Executive Airport (PWK) to 5K6 · Wilmot, WI
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI03LA125
- 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 J3C-65
- Aircraft type
- Piper J3
- 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
- N70971
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago Executive Airport (PWK), Wheeling, ILTo 5K6 · Wilmot, WI
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area › Encountered
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 was damaged when it struck a barbed wire fence during a forced landing following a loss of engine power during a go-around. The pilot reported that the engine lost power during the climb-out and he set up for a forced landing. The engine subsequently began producing power again and the pilot attempted to return to the airport. The engine again stopped producing power and a forced landing was executed during which a barbed wire fence was struck causing the airplane to nose over. No anomalies were found with respect to the airplane. Evidence indicating the presence of fuel was found at the accident site.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for an undetermined reason, and the unsuitable terrain encountered for the forced landing. A factor was the fence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI03LA125
- Event ID
- 20030516X00682
- Case number
- CHI03LA125
- 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 2003-05-14.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c42b6c1f28ae91a4f1a68b1632b7d23db23b8a6913fc83af85abeb6752e8fdca; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:18:19.216Z.