LAX06CA152 · Piper PA-44-180
DVG Holdings Incorperated Piper PA-44-180 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT) to Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX06CA152
- 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-44-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-44
- 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
- N449PA
- Operator
- DVG Holdings Incorperated
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT), Phoenix, AZTo Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT), Phoenix, AZ
- 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 go-around
- 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 (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Flightcrew › Airspeed(vmc), not maintained
- Flightcrew › Directional control, not maintained
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Fuel tank selector position, improper
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
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 veered off the runway during landing and collided with an airport sign. The flight instructor (CFI) and the private pilot were inbound on an instrument approach while simulating a right engine failure. Before reaching the missed approach point, the CFI instructed the student to continue the approach visually. About 20 feet from the touchdown point, he gave the student control of both throttles and pulled them to idle. The sink rate was excessive and the airplane bounced into the air. The student added power to execute a go-around procedure but the right engine did not respond. The airplane was below its one engine inoperative minimum controllable airspeed and it yawed suddenly to the right. The CFI took the controls from the student and reduced the throttle on the left engine to regain control of the airplane. The airplane touched down off the runway and hit an airport sign on an adjacent taxiway, which caused the airplane's nose gear to collapse. The airplane skidded to a halt on the airport ramp. A maintenance technician secured the airplane after the accident and noticed that the left fuel selector was in the on position and the right fuel selector was in the off position. Examination of the airplane revealed that there was no fuel in the right fuel line, carburetor, or fuel pump. Maintenance personnel turned the right engine fuel selector valve to the on position. One of them started the engine without difficulty, and they observed no anomalies while they ran the engine.
Probable cause
the failure of both pilots to maintain Vmc and directional control during a go-around. Also causal was an inoperative engine caused by flight instructor's failure to ensure that the fuel system was correctly configured for two engine operation by moving the shutoff valve for the right engine from the "off" to the "on" position. An additional cause was the flight instructor's inadequate supervision of the flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX06CA152
- Event ID
- 20060603X00679
- Case number
- LAX06CA152
- 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: 38b434f0f4e8e78b1580651dac9f9c1f8ce0dc9c0ea3fad591c12c5fe9a2bae8; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:57:22.266Z.