CEN14FA337 · Piper PA30
Piper PA30 · Accident: fuel contamination during initial climb
From Boone County Airport (HRO) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14FA337
- 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 PA30
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA30
- 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
- N7762Y
- Operator
- George A. Atiyeh · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Boone County Airport (HRO), Harrison, ARTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 49 years (built 1965)
- 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
- Fuel contamination
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
An airport security camera captured the pilot getting into the airplane, starting the engines, and taxiing for takeoff. No preflight inspection was recorded. About 2 minutes later, the camera and witnesses saw the airplane take off and immediately enter a gradual left turn about 400 feet above the ground. The bank angle increased to about 90 degrees before the airplane's right wing dropped, and the airplane disappeared from view. Examination of the left engine revealed water in the fuel flow divider, fuel injectors, engine-driven fuel pump, and selector valve fuel bowl. A sample taken from the fuel truck was tested and contained no water or contaminants. It is likely that, due to water in the fuel, the left engine lost power, which resulted in the airplane turning to the left. The pilot did not quickly and appropriately configure the airplane for one-engine flight, which resulted in a loss of control.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of control of the airplane during initial climb because he failed to correctly compensate for the loss of power in the left engine. Contributing to the accident was water contamination in the fuel and the lack of an adequate preflight inspection by the pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14FA337
- Event ID
- 20140703X12549
- Case number
- CEN14FA337
- 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: 0e49707c893849ac4d5473be7998d17423385da8a6573ecbf6555a56b258d119; retrieved 2026-09-16T00:47:53.575Z.