WPR09LA336 · Thomas C. Piper Murphy Rebel
Thomas C. Piper Murphy Rebel · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Idaho Falls Regional Airport (IDA) to Idaho Falls Regional Airport (IDA)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09LA336
- 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
Thomas C. Piper Murphy Rebel
- Aircraft type
- Thomas C Piper MURPHY REBEL
- 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
- N5PQ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Idaho Falls Regional Airport (IDA), Idaho Falls, IDTo Idaho Falls Regional Airport (IDA), Idaho Falls, ID
- 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 engine power (total)
- 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 power plant
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
All systems operated normally during a pre-takeoff checkout of the airplane. During the initial climb, the engine performed normally. According to the pilot, upon climbing to about 400 feet above the runway, the engine lost all power. He turned the airplane toward an adjacent runway, but did not have sufficient altitude and airspeed to complete the maneuver and the airplane impacted the ground hard. An examination of the airplane's controls and engine revealed no evidence of any mechanical malfunctions. A small amount of fuel was found in the engine's flow divider, and no fuel was found in the fuel injector lines. The engine ran during a postaccident test run. No mechanical reason was found for the interruption of fuel flow to the engine. According to the pilot, the fuel tanks contained about 31 gallons of fuel when he took off.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during initial climb due to fuel starvation. The underlying reason for the fuel starvation condition could not be determined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09LA336
- Event ID
- 20090709X33149
- Case number
- WPR09LA336
- 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: 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: d35d087c21e3475f0c6fc31f56eca91553db34f1a38c667a9eab8e79d6c3b8c1; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:46:23.073Z.