CEN22LA121 · Piper PA22 150
Piper PA22 150 · Accident
From Country Air Estates Airport (1AR9) to Country Air Estates Airport (1AR9)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN22LA121
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 PA22 150
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA22
- 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
- N7337D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Country Air Estates Airport (1AR9), Lonoke, ARTo Country Air Estates Airport (1AR9), Lonoke, AR
- Aircraft age
- About 65 years (built 1957)
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported the takeoff and initial climb into the traffic pattern were uneventful. However, the engine began to run rough while on the downwind leg of the traffic pattern. The pilot immediately changed the fuel selector from the right tank to the left tank, verified that the carburetor heat was on, and turned the airplane toward the runway. The pilot’s efforts to restore engine power were not successful. The airplane was not able to glide to the runway, and the pilot executed a forced landing into a wooded area.
Postaccident examination revealed that the left fuel tank was intact and the right fuel tank appeared to be compromised. A distinct fuel odor was present at the accident site and fuel was observed leaking from the left tank. The engine carburetor bowl contained minimal fuel, and the carburetor accelerator pump did not contain any fuel. No other anomalies with respect to the engine were observed. The pilot recalled that the left and right fuel tanks contained about 4 gallons and 7 gallons, respectively, before takeoff.
While it is possible that the pilot’s decision to change to the tank containing less fuel resulted in unporting of the fuel tank inlet and the subsequent loss of engine power, the investigation was unable to determine the reason for the loss of power or the initial engine roughness.
Probable cause
A loss of engine power for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN22LA121
- Event ID
- 20220215104640
- Case number
- CEN22LA121
- 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, coordinates, cause areas. 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: f730751c08aeb05fa8c5acdcf1876831ae9329e88dd8ac9c7e66c9ad6217048b; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:57:34.586Z.