ERA18LA062 · Piper PA32 300
Piper PA32 300 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during initial climb
From Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE) to Lynden Pindling International Airport (MYNN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18LA062
- 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 PA32 300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA32
- 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
- C6RVT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE), Fort Lauderdale, FLTo Lynden Pindling International Airport (MYNN), Nassua
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot indicated that he performed a preflight inspection with no anomalies noted and that the inboard fuel tanks were full of fuel and the outboard tanks contained about 1/4 fuel, which totaled about 60 gallons. According to the pilot, after departure, he initiated a left turn and reduced the engine power to "climb power"; soon after, the engine started to lose power. It "intermittently came back," and the pilot applied full power and requested to return to the airport. He started to set up an approach but realized that the airplane would not reach the airport; he landed the airplane in a lake just to the south, and the airplane sank.
An engine examination revealed no evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. The examination noted that the cabin of the airplane contained multiple household items that nearly reached the ceiling of the cabin; however, the items could not be accurately weighed after the airplane was submerged in water. When discussing the accident sequence with the pilot, he stated that he did not perform a weight and balance calculation with the contents of the airplane before takeoff. Based on the available evidence, the investigation could not determine the cause of the loss of engine power or if the airplane's weight and balance impacted the takeoff performance.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined based on the available evidence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18LA062
- Event ID
- 20171213X33503
- Case number
- ERA18LA062
- 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: 4e50575f02dd8f03e7eec1fd40ebbf3fd498b5890a18a6b352d9d30fa47c21b9; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:08:25.316Z.