ATL06LA053 · Piper PA28-180F
Piper PA28-180F · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Williamsport Airpark (SC86) to Williamsport Airpark (SC86)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL06LA053
- 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 PA28-180F
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA28
- 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
- N2133T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Williamsport Airpark (SC86), Easley, SCTo Williamsport Airpark (SC86), Easley, SC
- 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 · 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
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, following takeoff, he made a left standard pattern and turned to the north and climbed to about 3,000 feet. Upon reaching altitude, he leveled off and retarded the throttle to cruise power and turned off the fuel pump. At that time, the engine began running rough like a "magneto failure". He immediately turned the fuel pump back on, made a left standard turn back toward the runway. The engine continued to lose power and he could get no response from the throttle. He tried to glide to the runway, but then realized he was going to be short. He elected to land in a road intersection. He saw two sets of power wires in his path and went over the first set and had to go under the second set. Unable to regain altitude, he impacted the ground thirty yards short of the road and slid through the intersection. Damage consisted of the left wing, left main landing gear, nose gear, engine mount, firewall, and tearing of the bottom right wing lower skin. Examination of the engine by the FAA found fuel in the gascolator and carburetor bowl with a small amount of water in both. The throttle cable was attached and functioning. There were no obstructions observed in the intake manifold. The magnetos, spark plugs and compression were all within normal limits, and valve and valve train continuity was established through to the accessory section. The engine was not run due to the collapsed nose gear. The FAA further stated that all systems inspected appeared normal and that he suspected an intermittent fuel supply problem.
Probable cause
Loss of engine power for undetermined reasons which resulted in a forced landing and subsequent in-flight collision with non-suitable terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL06LA053
- Event ID
- 20060323X00331
- Case number
- ATL06LA053
- 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: 477a7bdfc96374ec3b137ad89d445b3c4e67948acaa7dd505639af2f765634f2; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:48:39.233Z.