CEN12LA216 · Piper PA-28-161
Bay Area Aero Club Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) on approach
From Pearland Regional Airport (KLVJ) to Houston Southwest Airport (KAXH)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12LA216
- 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
- N800KA
- Operator
- Bay Area Aero Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pearland Regional Airport (KLVJ), Pearland, TXTo Houston Southwest Airport (KAXH), Arcola, TX
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern base
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, there were no mechanical anomalies noted as he completed his preflight inspection or during cruise flight. However, the airplane experienced a sudden loss of engine power during the turn from the downwind leg to the base leg in the traffic pattern at the intended destination. The engine did not respond to throttle movements, and the application of carburetor heat did not improve engine performance. The pilot reported that there was insufficient altitude remaining to safely glide to the runway, and, as such, he performed a forced landing in a nearby drainage ditch. The nose landing gear collapsed during the landing.
A postaccident examination revealed no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or anomalies that would have precluded normal engine operation. The carburetor heat cockpit control was found in the ON position, and its movement confirmed continuity to the heat-box assembly. Although a carburetor-icing probability chart indicated that there was a serious risk of carburetor ice accumulation while operating at reduced engine power settings, such as during traffic pattern operations, the postaccident investigation could not determine if carburetor ice contributed to the loss of engine power.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during landing approach for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12LA216
- Event ID
- 20120330X04618
- Case number
- CEN12LA216
- 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: 3e5b143294c0dcf92c3c05dc4c2b3a277a61b8a488e9c582fec089cf0f992a23; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:37:09.084Z.