WPR14FA111 · Piper PA 28-181
TransPac Aviation Academy Piper PA 28-181 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during initial climb
From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT) to Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's injuries. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14FA111
- 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 28-181
- 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
- N312PA
- Operator
- TransPac Aviation Academy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT), Phoenix, AZTo Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (DVT), Phoenix, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 12 years (built 2002)
- 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
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
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 and flight instructor were conducting touch-and-go landings. The student flew an approach that required slipping the airplane and maintaining a low engine power setting. During the climb after the touch-and-go landing, the airplane's engine lost power about 200 ft above ground level. The flight instructor stated that the engine's rpm was decreasing and he decided to turn toward the airport area. Subsequently, the flight instructor initiated a forced landing to a field near the airport. During the landing sequence, the airplane struck and breached the airport's perimeter fence and then nosed over; a postaccident fire ensued. The postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
During the examination of the airplane wreckage, the fuel selector was found in an intermediate position. Ground testing of a similar model airplane revealed that the engine could run several minutes with the fuel selector positioned in this intermediate position. The student and the instructor stated that the student switched the fuel selector about 9 miles from the airport per operator requirements to switch fuel tanks every 30 minutes. Because of the location of the fuel selector, the flight instructor could not visually confirm its position. It is likely that the student inadvertently positioned the airplane's fuel selector in an intermediate setting, which restricted the engine's fuel supply. Further, the engine's low power setting during the approach allowed the engine to run for several minutes on the fuel remaining in the return line and operate until shortly after the completion of the touch-and-go landing. Subsequently, during the climb, when the engine power was advanced, it is likely that the remaining fuel in the return line was exhausted and led to the engine power loss.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s inadvertent positioning of the fuel selector in an intermediate position, which resulted in a loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14FA111
- Event ID
- 20140204X53202
- Case number
- WPR14FA111
- 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: 67e6ead3c1b203d4e55b1a95716cafc7214fe681390161bfe068a7f0bc3be328; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:18:13.522Z.