LAX08FA109 · Piper PA-23-160
Piper PA-23-160 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Brackett Field (POC) to Brackett Field (POC)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX08FA109
- 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-23-160
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N4080P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brackett Field (POC), La Verne, CATo Brackett Field (POC)
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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 control in flight
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor intended to demonstrate the airplane to the pilot rated passenger. The owner of the flight school that owned the airplane said that the flight was not authorized and that she had no knowledge that the instructor was going to take the airplane. The owner said that the airplane had been down for an annual inspection for 6 weeks and the mechanic had not completed the work. The mechanic said the left main fuel tank was empty when he last worked on the airplane 4 days before the accident. No records were found indicating the airplane was refueled prior to the accident flight. The flight instructor claimed that during his preflight inspection, he checked the fuel by opening each fuel tank and estimated there were 25 gallons in each main tank. The instructor said that the left engine lost all power immediately after liftoff, but he did not abort the takeoff. He was unable to maintain airspeed and altitude and the airplane banked left and descended to ground impact. The passenger reported that the airplane "fishtailed" from right to left during the takeoff roll, and that he yelled at the instructor to abort the takeoff several times; however, the flight instructor continued the takeoff. After lifting off, the flight instructor held the control wheel in the full left aileron position and was trying to make left rudder inputs. The passenger yelled at the flight instructor to add right rudder as the instructor added left rudder trim. As the passenger was readjusting the rudder trim to the right, the airplane hit the ground. During examination of the wreckage, no fuel was noted in the left main tank, and 10 gallons of fuel were drained from the right main tank. The fuel selectors were positioned to the main tanks. No evidence of preimpact mechanical anomalies were noted during examination of the left and right engines. The owner's manual for the airplane states that if an engine fails after leaving the ground, but with sufficient landing area ahead, a landing should be effected immediately. The takeoff was on a 4,839-foot-long runway and the airplane likely became airborne in about 1,000 feet, and there was adequate distance left to land the airplane back on the runway.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power in the left engine due to fuel starvation as a result of the pilot's inadequate preflight inspection and the pilot's failure to abort the takeoff following the power loss.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX08FA109
- Event ID
- 20080422X00530
- Case number
- LAX08FA109
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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 2008-04-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 944fd3f2729ecb605a0fd63999e0b1fe7f7189574bf79f57046bf5140e3f56ed; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:34:02.951Z.