WPR11TA087 · Piper PA-18-180
United States Department Agriculture Piper PA-18-180 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) while maneuvering
From Central Wyoming Regional Airport (KRIW) to Central Wyoming Regional Airport (KRIW)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11TA087
- 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
- Government
- 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-18-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-18
- 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
- N6774B
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Central Wyoming Regional Airport (KRIW), Riverton, WYTo Central Wyoming Regional Airport (KRIW), Riverton, WY
- 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- 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
According to the pilot, during a wildlife aerial observation flight, the engine suddenly stopped producing power. The pilot checked the fuel selector and magnetos and applied carburetor heat. Because he was unable to get the engine started again, he executed a forced landing on rough/uneven terrain. During the landing roll, the airplane went off a low bank, contacted the terrain at the bottom of the bank, and sustained substantial damage. At the time of the accident, the airplane had about one hour of fuel remaining, and the postaccident inspection, which included a successful engine run, did not find any anomalies that would have contributed to a loss of power. The ambient temperature and dew point were outside of the range at which carburetor icing would be expected to occur.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11TA087
- Event ID
- 20110105X42905
- Case number
- WPR11TA087
- 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: d8c30aea9eda64d348c7be683e38dcdfa3a0fcff898a60f75c8c190bb6676040; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:40:08.414Z.