ERA09LA201 · Piper PA-28-161
Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: fire/smoke (non-impact) while standing
From Melbourne Orlando International Airport (MLB) to Orlando Sanford International Airport (SFB)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09LA201
- 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
- N613FT
- Operator
- Florida Institute of Technology
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Melbourne Orlando International Airport (MLB), Melbourne, FLTo Orlando Sanford International Airport (SFB), Sanford, FL
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) not operating
- 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
- Fire/smoke (non-impact)
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot was making a stop-and-go landing and used maximum wheel and aerodynamic braking to stop the airplane. After coming to a stop, both pilots realized that the engine had stopped running. After calling tower personnel and advising them of the situation, the instructor attempted to re-start the engine. Four total re-start attempts were made. After the fourth attempt, the pilots noticed smoke and flames coming from the engine compartment. The instructor moved the mixture control to idle cut-off, and exited the airplane. A Federal Aviation Administration inspector examined the airplane and reported fire damage to the engine and airframe, including firewall deformation. The inspector stated that the fire appeared to originate in the induction system air box. In addition, damage to the air box was consistent with a fuel-air explosion. During the course of the investigation the source of the original loss of power was not identified, nor was it definitively proven how the air box was damaged; however, flooding of the engine during repeated attempts to start the engine could have played a role in the accident. The operator's maintenance personnel reported that the airplane did not have a history of engine problems.
Probable cause
An engine air induction explosion for an undetermined reason during repeated engine start attempts.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09LA201
- Event ID
- 20090317X85152
- Case number
- ERA09LA201
- 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 2009-03-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 12178d682b527e5eb645cf1ac2c3468e2149b1f468d63e2c0f59c6b28f104d6d; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:50:50.503Z.