WPR17LA208 · Piper PA 28-161
Piper PA 28-161 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) on approach
From Gillespie Field (SEE) to Gillespie Field (SEE)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR17LA208
- 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 28-161
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N2587X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gillespie Field (SEE), El Cajon, CATo Gillespie Field (SEE), El Cajon, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 32 years (built 1985)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern base
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot reported that he and the pilot-rated passenger returned to the airport to practice touch-and-go landings after a local flight. The first two landings were uneventful. While on the downwind leg of the traffic pattern for the third landing, the pilot reduced engine power and started to descend the airplane. After turning base, the pilot increased power, but the engine did not respond and remained at idle. There was no change in engine noise and the engine was not running rough. The pilot manipulated the throttle and primer several times, but the engine did not respond, and the pilot elected to land the airplane on a nearby road. During the descent, the airplane struck powerlines and a tree before it impacted the road and slid to a stop.
A postaccident engine examination did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. A review of the carburetor icing probability chart revealed that the airplane was operating in conditions favorable to the formation of serious carburetor icing at glide power. In addition, on-scene photographs revealed that the carburetor heat lever was in the off position; therefore, it is likely that carburetor ice accumulated during the descent, which resulted in a partial loss of engine power.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power due to the formation of carburetor ice during descent for landing. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s failure to apply carburetor heat.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR17LA208
- Event ID
- 20170918X33852
- Case number
- WPR17LA208
- 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, cause areas. 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: d1e46a14ea08dfdd74dc9f02c654700bf659e9389d0a8336827e4445de2ec5db; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:51:27.281Z.