CEN15FA088 · Piper PA 23-160
Eagle Support Services Piper PA 23-160 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during takeoff
From Erie-Ottawa International Airport (KPCW) to The Ohio State University Airport - Don Scott Field (KOSU)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15FA088
- 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
- 1 · 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 23-160
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N222CP
- Operator
- Eagle Support Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Erie-Ottawa International Airport (KPCW), Port Clinton, OHTo The Ohio State University Airport - Don Scott Field (KOSU), Columbus, OH
- Aircraft age
- About 54 years (built 1960)
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- 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 pilot was departing on a cross-country flight in the twin-engine airplane. A witness stated that before takeoff, the pilot spent about 20 minutes in the run-up area. As the airplane departed the runway, witnesses heard a "popping" noise come from the airplane. The airplane struggled to gain altitude, and one witness stated it appeared to have a problem with the left engine. The airplane turned left and descended. A review of a security camera video showed that the airplane turned left after takeoff, entered a rapid nose-down descent, and impacted terrain.
A small amount of water was found in the left engine's carburetor; however, firefighter response efforts could not be eliminated as a potential source for the water. Based on the weather conditions at the time of the accident, the airplane was operating in an area associated with a risk of carburetor ice accumulation at glide and cruise power settings, but not at takeoff power settings. Witness reports and findings from the investigation are consistent with a loss of control following a loss of left engine power; however, the examination of the airframe and engines did not reveal evidence of any preimpact abnormalities.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of control following a loss of left engine power for reasons that could not be determined because an examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any preimpact abnormalities.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15FA088
- Event ID
- 20141229X60803
- Case number
- CEN15FA088
- 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: d9c78f158265fdd3745fc5b18c11f66b954c8a88fb631f48460f8ea0000893b4; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:30:22.145Z.