WPR19LA065 · Piper PA28 140
Piper PA28 140 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) on approach
From U42 · Salt Lake City, UT to U42 · Salt Lake City, UT
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR19LA065
- 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 140
- 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
- N1697J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From U42 · Salt Lake City, UTTo U42 · Salt Lake City, UT
- Aircraft age
- About 51 years (built 1968)
- 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 final
- 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 power plant
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was practicing takeoffs and landings when the engine became unresponsive to throttle inputs. He performed a forced landing onto a highway, during which the airplane was substantially damaged. Examination of the engine revealed that the carburetor throttle lever lock nut was finger-tight, and its cotter pin was absent, which likely resulted in the throttle lever intermittently disengaging from the serrated throttle shaft when the pilot manipulated the throttle. A review of the maintenance log books and an interview with the mechanic revealed that the throttle cable had been removed and subsequently reinstalled onto the carburetor as part of the most recent annual inspection, which was completed about 1 month before the accident. It is likely that, at this time, the mechanic did not install or inadequately installed the cotter pin through the locking nut and bolt.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power due to the mechanic’s failure to properly secure the throttle lever locking nut and cotter pin.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR19LA065
- Event ID
- 20190115X54005
- Case number
- WPR19LA065
- 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: 2e57ee7d5fa12eb1bdf3266d9f33c2b9301019e58a2ac7cd4542f16d25bab3d5; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:32:43.812Z.