CEN12LA651 · Piper PA-28-140
JF Aircraft Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Boonville Airport (I91) to Boonville Airport (I91)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12LA651
- 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-28-140
- 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
- N5538F
- Operator
- JF Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Boonville Airport (I91), Boonville, INTo Boonville Airport (I91), Boonville, IN
- 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
- 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
The student pilot reported that he performed a preflight inspection and added 10 gallons of fuel to each tank before the solo flight. After takeoff, the airplane's engine lost power during initial climb. He then executed a forced landing in a field. Postaccident examination of the airplane, including the fuel system and engine, found fuel in both tanks but an absence of fuel in the fuel lines from the gascolator to the mechanical fuel pump. The fuel selector was found in the off position, but the student pilot's flight instructor reported that he had turned the fuel selector to the off position after arriving at the accident site. The instructor stated that he could not be sure, but the fuel selector may not have been fully engaged in the detent before he moved it to the off position. Although it is possible that the student pilot did not have the fuel selector properly positioned, the preimpact position of the valve could not be determined. The student pilot reported no preimpact malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during initial climb due to fuel starvation for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination could not verify whether the fuel selector was properly positioned before takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12LA651
- Event ID
- 20120921X44759
- Case number
- CEN12LA651
- 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: aabe34314db0d633deee11556e527a08e71d477f714c9eac5805301ab2fc6e10; retrieved 2026-09-15T19:58:56.128Z.