CEN18LA281 · Piper PA28
Piper PA28 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) while maneuvering
From Shreveport Downtown Airport (DTN) to Shreveport Downtown Airport (DTN)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18LA281
- 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 PA28
- 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
- N7080F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Shreveport Downtown Airport (DTN), Shreveport, LATo Shreveport Downtown Airport (DTN), Shreveport, LA
- Aircraft age
- About 42 years (built 1976)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 pilot departed on a postmaintenance check flight after an annual inspection on the previous day. According to the pilot, the airplane was flown in the local traffic pattern before departing the area. As the airplane climbed through 2,500 ft, it was not climbing more than 300 ft per minute without losing airspeed, and the pilot noticed a decrease in engine rpm. The pilot indicated that the oil pressure and oil temperature were normal, the vacuum gauge indicated "zero," and gyroscopic instruments began to drift and tumble. The pilot proceeded directly for the nearest airport, and when on final approach for the runway, the engine rpm and airspeed decreased. The engine did not respond to throttle inputs, and the pilot landed the airplane on a river levy. The airplane bounced, contacted a road, and came to rest against the airport perimeter fence, which resulted in substantial damage to both wings. Examination of the engine revealed that the output shaft of the vacuum pump was sheared. It could not be determined if the vacuum pump output shaft failed before or during the accident sequence. Additional engine information was not available. The reason for the partial loss of engine power could not be determined.
Probable cause
The partial 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 CEN18LA281
- Event ID
- 20180719X01751
- Case number
- CEN18LA281
- 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: 9c92be3bc91cb103d72d095b96d5c197983192f816f9e088c149d23a7dbf7bcf; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:54:18.248Z.