WPR13LA109 · Piper PA-28-235
Piper PA-28-235 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during takeoff
From Skypark Airport (BTF) to Skypark Airport (BTF)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13LA109
- 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-28-235
- 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
- N8554W
- Operator
- Curtis Jolley
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Skypark Airport (BTF), Bountiful, UTTo Skypark Airport (BTF), Bountiful, UT
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 pilot reported that, following an uneventful takeoff, he initiated a right turn to the crosswind leg of the traffic pattern when the engine lost power. He continued to turn the airplane right toward the departure runway while switching to the right fuel tank, but there was no change in engine power. Unable to make it to the runway, he initiated a forced landing into an open, snow-covered field. During the landing roll, the right main landing gear submerged in the snow, the airplane veered to the right, and the left wing struck the ground. A postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. A local reporting station recorded the temperature as 43 degrees F and dew point as 28 degrees F. Although the reported weather conditions were conducive to carburetor icing at glide and cruise power, the engine was operating at a high power setting for takeoff, indicating that carburetor ice likely was not the reason for the loss of engine power.
Probable cause
A total loss of engine power during initial climb 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 WPR13LA109
- Event ID
- 20130202X30850
- Case number
- WPR13LA109
- 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: 9411faacd3b276eb7d682a5af1fd4fb5599933ed88145955a77a64229f4fc726; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:52:37.929Z.