CEN15FA287 · Piper PA 24-250
Piper PA 24-250 · Accident: fuel contamination during initial climb
From Taylor Airport (T14) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15FA287
- 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 PA 24-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N6168P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Taylor Airport (T14), Quinlan, TXTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 56 years (built 1959)
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Aircraft › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane, which was owned and operated by the private pilot, experienced a total loss of engine power shortly after takeoff, descended, and impacted a field. A fire erupted that consumed the majority of the airplane's cabin and the inboard sections of both wings. The wreckage distribution, ground scars, and crushing of the wing leading edges were indicative of a low-speed nose-down impact and consistent with an aerodynamic stall. Examination of the fuel system revealed the presence of rust and water in both electric fuel pumps and water in the engine carburetor bowl. The examination revealed no other engine or airframe anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The rust found in the fuel pumps indicated that the fuel system had been contaminated with water for a long period of time. The airplane owner's handbook provided clear and explicit instructions on how to check before flight for fuel system contamination.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane following a loss of engine power during initial climb after takeoff, which resulted in the wing's critical angle-of-attack being exceeded and a subsequent aerodynamic stall. Also causal was the pilot's inadequate preflight inspection of the airplane's fuel system, which resulted in the loss of engine power due to water contamination.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15FA287
- Event ID
- 20150701X23218
- Case number
- CEN15FA287
- 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: 2f34eff7f8999369e70486ed12687837476234cda4123caa73146e23eaa526dd; retrieved 2026-09-14T19:45:23.699Z.