NYC03IA011 · Piper PA-28-236
Piper PA-28-236 · Incident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Altoona Blair County Airport (AOO) to Altoona Blair County Airport (AOO)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC03IA011
- 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
- Incident
- 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-28-236
- 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
- N4295R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Altoona Blair County Airport (AOO), Altoon, PATo Altoona Blair County Airport (AOO)
- 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 · climb to 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Fuel system, selector/valve › Malfunction
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During takeoff and after reaching 300 feet agl, the engine started to run "very rough." The pilot switched from the right fuel tank to the left, the engine continued to run rough, and the fuel pressure gauge indicated zero. With insufficient power to maintain flight, the pilot executed a forced landing to a field. An engine run was performed, but was limited to 1,500 RPM because of propeller damage. The left and right fuel tanks were selected, and no anomalies were identified. The engine was then removed, and sent to the manufacturer for overhaul where no preimpact failures or malfunctions were identified. The engine was reinstalled, and the airplane painted. While taxing the airplane after being painted, the engine lost power. The pilot noted that the engine would run normally when the right tank was selected, but when the left was selected, fuel pressure would drop to zero, and the engine would lose power. The pilot had the fuel selector removed, and examined. No anomalies were identified, and no obstructions were found in the fuel line that ran from the left fuel tank to the fuel selector. The fuel selector was replaced with a new one, and the problem did not reoccur.
Probable cause
A failure of the fuel selector for an undetermined reason.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC03IA011
- Event ID
- 20031020X01773
- Case number
- NYC03IA011
- 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: 70da8422d620c35f653552e4a29c57f207c06076d2595d39e0a3fff8e225a342; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:03:25.921Z.