WPR19LA259 · Piper PA28 181
CAE Oxford Aviation Academy Phoenix Piper PA28 181 · Accident: fire/smoke (non-impact) before flight
From an unrecorded airport to Falcon Field (FFZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR19LA259
- 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 181
- 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
- N4403Z
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Falcon Field (FFZ), Mesa, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 6 years (built 2013)
- 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
- Prior to flight
- 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
- Fire/smoke (non-impact)
- 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
During engine start about 30 minutes following the previous shutdown, the engine caught fire, which resulted in substantial damage to the airplane. The operator reported that six of their airplanes experienced flooding and subsequent fires during the engine start process within the previous 6 months. The airplanes that experienced flooding and fires had all previously flown and been parked between 5 and 28 minutes before the engines were restarted and the flooding occurred. During these events, the daily average temperatures were between 85° and 98°F.
Testing conducted to simulate the conditions of the engine fire events revealed that, in the minutes following engine shutdown, the temperature of the fuel system components and fuel pressure to the carburetor would rise, most likely as a result of heat soaking from the combination of the hot engine and high outside air temperature. The tests showed that during the engine restart, about 6 to 12 ounces of fuel and vapor emanated from the carburetor intakes. During some of the tests, a whistling sound was heard originating from the carburetor inlet, which is likely from the buildup of fuel vapor as a result of the heat soaking and escaping through the internal passages of the carburetor before exiting out the carburetor intake.
The carburetor from the accident airplane was disassembled, and the accelerator pump needle valve showed wear at the valve contact area. This wear was likely a result of the high fuel pressure vapor and fuel escaping past the valve, causing it to chatter excessively. The operator had experienced recent growth in its student population, which resulted in increased frequency of flights during the day. This most likely prevented the engine and fuel system from cooling between flights.
Probable cause
Excessive fuel pressure and temperature throughout the fuel system due to heat soaking, which resulted in an engine fire during engine start.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR19LA259
- Event ID
- 20190914X53757
- Case number
- WPR19LA259
- 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: local date, investigation status, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2019-09-14.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6a0de6a07a58b8c9c31c4f17094b3308ae3cdff0e6385bbcf2e5b09490e544ac; retrieved 2026-09-16T10:05:03.075Z.