CEN13FA429 · Piper PA-28R-201T
Altitude Piper PA-28R-201T · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during takeoff
From Brewster Field (HDE) to Mark Hoard Memorial Airport (3K7)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13FA429
- 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-201T
- 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
- N31698
- Operator
- Altitude
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brewster Field (HDE), Holdrege, NETo Mark Hoard Memorial Airport (3K7), Leoti, KS
- Aircraft age
- About 35 years (built 1978)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that the takeoff and climb were normal but that, about 700 to 1,000 feet above ground level, the engine stopped generating power even though the engine and propeller were still turning. Despite troubleshooting efforts, the pilot was unable to restore engine power; he stated that he heard intermittent backfire noise from the engine. While troubleshooting, the pilot banked the airplane back toward the airport but it was not at sufficient altitude to reach it, so he chose to land on a trail road. The pilot had to steer the airplane to the right to avoid a large pipe. Subsequently, the airplane's right wing contacted corn stalks, and the airplane came to rest in the cornfield.
The airplane was equipped with an optional engine primer system, which included an electrically operated primer diverter valve connected to two primer nozzles, located in the metered fuel supply line between the air throttle valve and the manifold valve on each side of the engine. Actuation of the engine primer switch operates the auxiliary electric fuel pump and energizes the diverter valve that supplies fuel to each primer nozzle. Downloaded data from an engine monitor revealed that, about 2 minutes after takeoff, the fuel flow to the engine decreased from about 18 gallons per hour to about 2 gallons per hour and that four of the six cylinders' exhaust gas temperatures and cylinder head temperatures decreased rapidly. An examination of the wreckage revealed that the airplane's electric fuel pump activated when the battery was reconnected and the electric fuel pump selector was in the "off" position. The engine started, but it did not run smoothly. The engine was removed from the airplane and subsequently run in a test cell, and it was operational. The engine was test run again with the diverter valve electrically actuated; the engine subsequently ran roughly at low power and backfired. The panel-mounted primer switch was examined, and it did not exhibit any anomalies. The engine test run with the activation of the primer diverter valve duplicated the pilot's report of a loss of engine power and subsequent backfiring.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power during takeoff due to the activation of the primer diverter valve.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13FA429
- Event ID
- 20130723X44702
- Case number
- CEN13FA429
- 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: 9dc7fd22cdea8905f943c9ad463c60c57710d958c1092b489efbafda0603381a; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:17:57.222Z.