NYC08LA034 · Piper PA-28-151
Piper PA-28-151 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From 80KW · Sacramento, KY to Owensboro Daviess County Airport (OWB)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC08LA034
- 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-28-151
- 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
- N41535
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 80KW · Sacramento, KYTo Owensboro Daviess County Airport (OWB), Owensboro, KY
- 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
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
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 he performed a preflight inspection of the airplane, which included "sumping" the fuel tanks, and no contamination was observed in the fuel samples. The airplane had recently been fueled to the "tabs," and approximately 17 gallons of 100 low lead aviation gasoline was in both fuel tanks during the accident takeoff. No discrepancies were noted during engine start, taxi, and run-up. During the initial climb, the engine lost all power about 60 feet above ground level, and the pilot performed a forced landing into a soybean field. According to his written statement, the pilot reported that the fuel selector was positioned to the right main fuel tank during the accident takeoff, and he moved it to the off position after the accident. After the accident, a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector observed the fuel selector in the off position, and it was moved to the right fuel tank position. The engine then started and ran continuously up to 2,300 rpm. When the FAA inspector interviewed the pilot, the pilot stated that he was "pretty sure" and that he "thought so" when asked twice about having the fuel selector positioned to the right fuel tank during the accident takeoff.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during initial climb for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC08LA034
- Event ID
- 20071121X01826
- Case number
- NYC08LA034
- 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: c85f4576dff091dc8be438f43fbf2165e6dfe7c800cf8d4da7bc89b7452e2bb1; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:17:14.688Z.