CEN14LA519 · Piper PA 36-285
Gaerte AG Service Piper PA 36-285 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during takeoff
From Steinman Airport (53II) to Steinman Airport (53II)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA519
- 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 36-285
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-36
- 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
- N9913P
- Operator
- Gaerte AG Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Steinman Airport (53II), Woodburn, INTo Steinman Airport (53II), Woodburn, IN
- Aircraft age
- About 39 years (built 1975)
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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 the engine lost power during the takeoff roll. He was unable to stop the airplane on the remaining runway, and it subsequently impacted a berm and then came to rest in a corn field.
The pilot reported that, on the day after the accident, he observed about 30 gallons of fuel in the right wing fuel tank and no fuel in the left wing fuel tank. The pilot reported the accident 3 days later, and a postaccident examination was conducted the following day. About 2 gallons of fuel was found in the right wing fuel tank, and the left wing fuel tank was empty. Fuel was placed in each wing fuel tank, and positive fuel flow was observed at the engine fuel inlet. Given these findings, it is possible that the loss of engine power was due to fuel exhaustion; however, the delay in the reporting of the accident precluded an accurate determination of the amount of fuel on board the airplane at the time of the accident.
During an engine test run, the engine ran normally on just the left magneto and with both magnetos selected; however, the engine did not run normally on just the right magneto. Each magneto produced a spark across all leads when bench tested. Subsequent examination of the right magneto revealed that the distributor bushing was worn, which allowed excessive play between the distributor gear and the block. It is possible that the worn distributor bushing interfered with the proper timing of the right magneto during the accident takeoff; however, this would have caused a disruption in engine operation, which is not consistent with a sudden or complete loss of power.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power during takeoff for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA519
- Event ID
- 20140925X70144
- Case number
- CEN14LA519
- 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: b08a106d5a171ebaa1a93db7cebfeaa27ac3c5e8e193388c452c69e587dc1b95; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:48:09.589Z.