CEN14LA058 · Piper PA 28-140
Piper PA 28-140 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during takeoff
From Stinson Municipal Airport (SSF) to Pleasanton Municipal Airport (PEZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA058
- 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
- 0
- 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
- N57DB
- Operator
- David H Barnhart · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Stinson Municipal Airport (SSF), San Antonio, TXTo Pleasanton Municipal Airport (PEZ), Pleasanton, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 44 years (built 1969)
- 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 (partial)
- 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 reported that, after advancing the airplane's throttle to full power for takeoff, the engine produced "normal thrust," the airspeed reached 60 mph, and the tachometer indicated 2,700 rpm. The acceleration was smooth and all indications were normal when the airplane reached rotation. About 600 feet above the ground, the airplane's nose began to lower, the airspeed remained 60 mph, and the tachometer indicated 2,000 rpm. The pilot pitched the nose down to prevent a stall and ensured that the throttle and mixture controls were full forward and that the electric fuel pump was on. He reported to the air traffic controller that the airplane's engine was not producing sufficient power and that he was returning to the runway. Shortly after the radio transmission, the airplane impacted terrain and a tree.
An examination of the airplane's engine revealed a fuel stain on the carburetor inlet, indicating that the airflow through the carburetor had been decreased. The carburetor induction air inlet duct was single-thickness scat-type ducting, which was not the material described for the part, which should have been installed in accordance with a manufacturer's service bulletin. The material appeared to be beyond its normal service life with frayed edges and loose strings, and most of the wire was loose and separated from the duct. Further, the carburetor air inlet duct appeared to have been compressed due to negative air pressure during high engine rpm, which would have restricted the airflow to the engine and reduced the engine power. The No. 2 cylinder and its associated spark plugs contained dark sooting, likely due to the restricted airflow, which resulted in a rich fuel/air mixture inside the cylinder. The airplane was 12 days overdue for an annual inspection; the improper, damaged air duct could have been identified during the inspection.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power after departure due to the collapse of the carburetor air inlet duct, which restricted the airflow to the engine. Contributing to the accident was the overdue annual inspection and the installation of the improper air inlet duct.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA058
- Event ID
- 20131118X10427
- Case number
- CEN14LA058
- 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: 62c3dfd052b059cc934620ada5a027c40a7dac9c5da0a15bd21e9c97e9def7ce; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:07:37.077Z.