DFW07CA121 · Piper PA-44-180
Piper PA-44-180 · Accident: loss of engine power while taxiing
From Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport (KLBB) to Tulsa International Airport (KTUL)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW07CA121
- 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
- N255ER
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport (KLBB), Lubbock, TXTo Tulsa International Airport (KTUL), Tulsa, OK
- 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
- Taxi · to runway
- 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
- Exhaust system › Separation
- Fuel system, line › Leak
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 1,730-hour flight instructor and a student pilot performed a normal engine run-up in a twin-engine airplane prior to a local training flight. The run-up did not reveal any anomalies and the airplane was clear to taxi to runway 35L. The right engine lost power while the airplane was holding short to take the active runway. The student pilot attempted to restart the right engine when he noticed "flames coming from the bottom of the engine cowling." The flight instructor and the student pilot exited the airplane through the cabin door without injuries. Airport rescue and fire fighting (ARFF) personnel responded to the aircraft fire and extinguished the fire. A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector, who responded to the scene, reported that the right engine nacelle sustained structural damage as result of the engine fire. Additionally, the inspector found the exhaust stack for the number one cylinder had separated. The inspector also reported that the braided fuel line leaked when the line was pres
Probable cause
The failure of the engine fuel supply line and the separation of the number one cylinder exhaust pipe resulting in an engine fire.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW07CA121
- Event ID
- 20070613X00719
- Case number
- DFW07CA121
- 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: 9d353f63eb04898a1a5e59686e384881463f436785129baedb9fd1f1d64544b2; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:48:22.891Z.