MIA03LA133 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Ocean Springs Airport (5R2) to 5R2
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA03LA133
- 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
- N8378W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ocean Springs Airport (5R2), Ocean Springs, MSTo 5R2
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fuel system, selector/valve › Malfunction
- Pilot in command › Maintenance, not performed
- Pilot in command › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment, continued
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that during the takeoff/initial climb, while near the end of the runway, at an altitude of 150 feet, the airplane's engine began to sputter and act as if it was going to cease operating. He stated that he glanced at the fuel selector switch and confirmed that it appeared to be at the proper position, and he then started pumping the throttle. He said the engine seemed as if it would "recover" but as he continued to pump the throttle, the engine finally ceased operating. He said he then maneuvered to avoid obstacles and executed a forced landing into the marsh. During the landing the airplane flipped over its back and was damaged. After recovery from the marsh, an FAA examiner examined the accident airplane, and the examination revealed that the fuel selector valve had been set beyond the "right tank" detent, which when tested, prevented the flow of fuel to the engine. In addition, the inspector said that the pilot told him that he had problems previously with the engine ceasing to operate when the fuel selector valve was in the "right tank" position, so he had been rotating it beyond the detent for the "right tank" position and had experienced no problems since. The inspector stated that records revealed that the accident airplane had last received an annual inspection on May 10, 1997.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to starvation as a result of the pilot's continued operation of an airplane with known deficiencies.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA03LA133
- Event ID
- 20030701X00982
- Case number
- MIA03LA133
- 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: 59c32856ae7a929c527fba745e3bbf80c3d10ef0ca84ec131a585d277c23fee1; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:26:47.813Z.