CEN18LA065 · Piper PA-28-201T
Piper PA-28-201T · Accident: loss of engine power (total) during takeoff
From Roy Otten Memorial Airfield (3VS) to Roy Otten Memorial Airfield (3VS)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18LA065
- 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-28-201T
- 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
- N555WM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Roy Otten Memorial Airfield (3VS), Versailles, MOTo Roy Otten Memorial Airfield (3VS), Versailles, MO
- Aircraft age
- About 38 years (built 1979)
- 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 (total)
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot was going to perform a local flight for the first time after an overhauled engine was installed on the airplane. During engine ground operations, no leaks were noted, and the engine operated normally. After takeoff, the pilot flew the airplane around the airport traffic pattern and accomplished a touch-and-go landing. During the climbout, at 400 to 500 ft above ground level, the engine lost total power. The pilot conducted a forced landing to a field. During the landing roll, the airplane's left wing struck a metal fence post, which resulted in substantial damage to the airplane.
A postaccident examination revealed that the inlet tee fitting on the throttle body/fuel metering unit was missing a cap fitting, which was subsequently found between the Nos. 3 and 5 cylinders. After the cap fitting was reinstalled, the engine was restarted and ran normally.
The mechanic who installed the overhauled engine stated that the cap fitting was in its proper place during the installation of the engine and that he had not disturbed the cap fitting during the maintenance that was performed before the maintenance check flight. The repair station's quality control manager reported that an inspector checked all of the engine fittings to verify that they were secure. During the engine test run, the tee fitting was not disturbed because it was not used to attach the gauge for the fuel system checks, and the engine met all performance objectives of the test run.
The engine experienced a total loss of power due to fuel starvation when the cap fitting came off the inlet tee fitting on the throttle body/fuel metering unit. However, the available evidence was not sufficient to determine how the cap fitting became loose and displaced from its installed location.
Probable cause
The total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation when the cap fitting came off the inlet tee fitting on the throttle body/fuel metering unit.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18LA065
- Event ID
- 20180104X64414
- Case number
- CEN18LA065
- 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: 7fc35f3a540fe01d24cdba49190c1cdb2f33fb6616c3b0dc5127096a3199397a; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:15:31.925Z.