LAX06LA251 · Piper PA-28-161
Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during takeoff
From Nevada County Airport (KGOO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX06LA251
- 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-28-161
- 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
- N2115R
- Operator
- Gregory Goodknight
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nevada County Airport (KGOO), Nevada County, CATo 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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 › Vapor lock
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On the pilot's second attempted takeoff, the engine lost power and the airplane overran the runway surface. The temperature was 96 degrees Fahrenheit, and the density altitude was calculated to be 6,273 feet mean sea level. The pilot was planning on making a local flight in the airplane to verify its performance. On the first takeoff attempt, the pilot aborted the takeoff due to loss of available engine power. He landed the airplane on the runway and taxied back to the run-up area to attempt another takeoff. He conducted another run-up at full power and noted no anomalies. During the second takeoff attempt, the airplane climbed to 60 feet and the engine lost power. The pilot force-landed the airplane on the remaining runway, the airplane overran the surface and encountered rough terrain. A Federal Aviation Administration inspector performed an inspection and test-run of the engine following the accident and found no operational anomalies. A condition known as vapor lock can occur when the engine heats the fuel lines and the contained fuel becomes a vapor. This tendency is increased if the fuel in the tank is warm, commonly as a result of high atmospheric temperatures. The fuel vapor can result in partial or complete interruption of fuel flow to the engine.
Probable cause
The loss of available engine power due to vapor lock. A contributing factor was the high temperature.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX06LA251
- Event ID
- 20060802X01075
- Case number
- LAX06LA251
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2006-07-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e1f842428c70f431db7ef4382cf1846e975db3833825e3490b192240a0cde50f; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:39:03.340Z.