ERA10LA370 · Piper PA-28R-200
Tradewind Aviation International Piper PA-28R-200 · Accident: fuel starvation during initial climb
From Coastal Carolina Regional Airport (EWN) to Coastal Carolina Regional Airport (EWN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10LA370
- 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-200
- 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
- N8900E
- Operator
- Tradewind Aviation International
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Coastal Carolina Regional Airport (EWN), New Bern, NCTo Coastal Carolina Regional Airport (EWN), New Bern, NC
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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
- Organizational issues › Development
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident flight was the first flight after an overhauled fuel servo was installed on the airplane. During initial climb, about 600 feet above ground level, the engine experienced a partial loss of power. The pilot performed a 180-degree turn and attempted to land in the opposite direction of takeoff; however, the engine lost all power during final approach, and the airplane impacted a fence about 150 feet prior to the runway. Examination of the wreckage did not reveal any anomalies with the airframe or engine, and adequate fuel was onboard. A subsequent teardown examination of the fuel servo revealed that small, clear, spherical particles were found on the threads of the inlet fitting and plug of the fuel inlet screen. The particles were consistent with glass beads and were also found in the manual mixture control valve chamber and on the unmetered side of the fuel diaphragm. One particle was found underneath the diaphragm. According to the Federal Aviation Administration principle maintenance inspector of the company that overhauled the fuel servo, the glass beads found in the accident fuel servo were similar to the glass beads used by the company. Although the company did not bead-blast their fuel servos, bead-blasting was performed in other locations in the factory, including areas approximately 20 feet from where the fuel servos were overhauled.
Probable cause
Inadequate quality control at the fuel servo overhaul facility, which resulted in contamination of the fuel servo and a subsequent loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10LA370
- Event ID
- 20100721X04940
- Case number
- ERA10LA370
- 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: 50e27536b3dba71b123cda6f6631165bd1b56ec1651d47dc9b47a3dcea85dcc7; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:44:03.785Z.