CHI04LA202 · Piper PA-24
Piper PA-24 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Butler Field (IN46) to Indianapolis Executive Airport (TYQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04LA202
- 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-24
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N5769P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Butler Field (IN46), Rockville, INTo Indianapolis Executive Airport (TYQ), Zionsville, IN
- 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 pattern downwind
- 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
- Fuel system, carburetor › Blocked(partial)
- Fuel system, carburetor › Foreign material/substance
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 collided with trees during a forced landing while in the traffic pattern at a private airstrip. The pilot stated he departed the airstrip and attempted to contact approach control (21 statue miles away) to activate his instrument flight rules flight plan. He stated he was having radio problems in that he could hear approach control, but they were unable to hear him. The pilot reported he was in instrument meteorological conditions so he decided to return to the airstrip. The pilot stated he was in the traffic pattern to land when the engine lost power. He stated he thought he had picked up carburetor ice, so he applied carburetor heat, but was unable to regain any engine power. The airplane contacted trees and settled into a heavily wooded area near the airport. The pilot spent the night in the airplane and found his way out of the woods the following morning. The closest weather reporting station, located 21 miles from the accident site, reported the weather 7 mintes prior to the accident, as 1-1/4 mile visibility with light rain and mist, scattered clouds at 400 feet and a broken cloud ceiling at 700 feet. A post accident inspection of the airplane revealed that the venturi on the air inlet side of the carburetor was blocked by a 5-1/2 inch long piece of heat shield material. This material covered about 70 percent of the inlet area. The source of this material could not be determined as this material was not used anywhere on the airplane. The last annual inspection of the airframe and engine was performed approximately 60 flight hours prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The restriction of airflow in the carburetor due to a foreign substance blockage of the venturi. A contributing factor was the trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04LA202
- Event ID
- 20040820X01265
- Case number
- CHI04LA202
- 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: 9f2abdfc3d23362c41b7a472ab32e6aba5c763024a41d680e128521da59ac99c; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:11:03.926Z.