MIA05LA036 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Peter Prince Field (2R4) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA05LA036
- 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
- N7510W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Peter Prince Field (2R4), Milton, FLTo not recorded
- 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
- 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
- Fuel starvation; Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
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 the preflight was normal, fuel was "clear", no water was present, and he had approximately 35 gallons of fuel in the fuel tanks. He taxied to runway 36 and did an engine run-up prior to takeoff. He noted that the fuel selector was on the right fuel tank. He departed on runway 36, and shortly after liftoff the airplane engine started to run "rough", the pilot then switched the fuel tank selector to the left tank, he could not remember if the fuel tank selector was on a detent or not. He made a 180-degree turn to return back to the field and crashed 116 feet west of the north end of runway 18. The pilot added, during that time with the engine problem, he placed his right hand on the yoke and with the left hand he reached for the fuel selector slapping it to the left tank position. In the process he was leaning into and pulling on the yoke. With FAA oversight, Lycoming and Piper conducted examination of the airplane and engine. The airplane's engine examination revealed no indication of pre-impact anomalies or failure. The fuel lines were examined and no indication of fuel contamination was present. Fuel was found in all fuel lines forward of the gascolator on the firewall. The fuel tank selector was found in the off position. The FAA inspector stated that the witnesses who assisted with the accident recovery did not change the fuel selector position.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power due to fuel starvation as a result of the improper fuel selector position.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA05LA036
- Event ID
- 20041207X01932
- Case number
- MIA05LA036
- 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: 42020337ce28b8180518ec670bfd4dc96365dcb870803efce2a925b035d6c683; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:10:28.489Z.