ERA15FA171 · Piper PA28 140
Piper PA28 140 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during takeoff
From Brandywine Regional Airport (OQN) to Brandywine Regional Airport (OQN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15FA171
- 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
- 2 · 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 PA28 140
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA28
- 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
- N6842W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brandywine Regional Airport (OQN), West Chester, PATo Brandywine Regional Airport (OQN), West Chester, PA
- Aircraft age
- About 50 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
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot/owner had not flown for about 4 years and was receiving a flight review from the flight instructor. The airplane was most recently flown about 4.5 months before the accident and was fueled about 1 month before the accident.. Witnesses reported that during an initial engine run-up before takeoff, the engine ran rough, but during a second run-up, the condition was resolved. According to witnesses, the airplane's first takeoff was aborted for unknown reasons; during the second takeoff, they heard "popping" sounds before and engine sputtering just after the airplane rotated and began to climb. One witness reported that the engine lost power momentarily while adequate runway remained available to abort the takeoff. However, the pilots elected to continue the takeoff, and the airplane subsequently experienced additional intermittent engine power interruptions. The witnesses reported that the airplane was about 0.5 mile west of the airport, in a slight nose-up attitude, when the left wing dropped. It then entered a spin, impacted the ground in a residential area, and was partially consumed by a postcrash fire.
Postaccident examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal evidence of any preimpact malfunctions; however, extensive fire damage precluded operational testing of the ignition and fuel system components. The No. 4 cylinder exhaust value was stuck; however, it was likely a result of the postcrash fire. Although the gascolator drain valve was found in a partially locked position, the valve's position at impact could not be determined. The reason for the engine sputtering and then resuming normal operation several times as reported by the witnesses could not be determined. In addition, it could not be determined why the flight instructor and pilot/owner elected to continue the takeoff after the airplane experienced an engine malfunction with ample runway remaining to abort the takeoff.
Probable cause
The failure of the flight instructor and the pilot to abort the takeoff after the airplane experienced a partial loss of engine power with adequate runway remaining, and their subsequent failure to maintain adequate airspeed, which led to the airplane exceeding its critical angle-of-attack and experiencing an aerodynamic stall. Contributing to the accident was an intermittent loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined during postaccident examination of the wreckage due to extensive postcrash fire damage.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15FA171
- Event ID
- 20150330X64758
- Case number
- ERA15FA171
- 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: ba9c2bb72b23f06beb51eca0bfd85b0f2d4dc84340f718dd40056595a9ffc26c; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:33:58.137Z.