ERA09LA494 · Piper PA-28R-201
Aviation Adventures Piper PA-28R-201 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From W45 · Luray, VA to Leesburg Executive Airport (JYO)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09LA494
- 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-28R-201
- 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
- N186CF
- Operator
- Aviation Adventures
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From W45 · Luray, VATo Leesburg Executive Airport (JYO), Leesburg, VA
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial-rated pilot receiving instruction and the certificated flight instructor (CFI) flew a 50-nautical mile flight to an outlying airport, then boarded the airplane for the return flight. The pilot observed normal indications on the engine instruments throughout the taxi and engine run-up. Shortly after takeoff, the airplane seemed "sluggish," the airspeed began to drop, and the airplane experienced a partial, then total, loss of engine power. During the subsequent forced landing, the airplane clipped a telephone pole prior to impacting a clearing. The CFI stated that he observed no abnormal indications at any time prior to the initial loss of engine power during takeoff. During an engine test run subsequent to the accident, while operating at moderate power, the fuel flow gauge began fluctuating before the engine suddenly lost power. The engine was re-started and again lost power after about 2 minutes. The engine-driven fuel pump was removed and disassembled with no anomalies noted. The fuel line connecting the fuel pump to the fuel servo was removed and examined, and no evidence of blockage or degradation was observed. A visual inspection, flow test, and teardown inspection of the fuel servo and flow divider at the manufacturer's facility revealed no anomalies.
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 ERA09LA494
- Event ID
- 20090831X42849
- Case number
- ERA09LA494
- 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. 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: 94a7d9fc613eb0c3987af2de077e582a69f01b9a00f53e422225be6e3b7998b5; retrieved 2026-09-15T12:52:35.483Z.