CEN22LA421 · Piper PA-28R-180
Piper PA-28R-180 · Accident: loss of engine power (partial) during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN22LA421
- 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 PA-28R-180
- 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
- N3713T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 55 years (built 1967)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
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 that shortly after takeoff, when the airplane was about 200 ft above ground level (AGL), the engine sustained a partial loss of power. He was not able to climb or maintain altitude and executed a forced landing. During the landing the airplane nosed over into a pond, resulting in substantial damage to both wings. Recorded flight data was consistent with the pilot’s description of events, but no recorded engine data was available. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the interior liner of the induction air hose between the air filter and the throttle body was partially collapsed inward. The exterior of the hose did not display obvious damage. No further preimpact anomalies that would explain the reported loss of engine power were found. Weather conditions at the time of the accident were conducive for carburetor icing at glide and cruise power settings, but not at the full power setting that would be used for takeoff and initial climb. Based on the available evidence, the partially collapsed induction hose likely collapsed further, blocking airflow to the carburetor and resulting in the loss of engine power.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power due to a collapsed induction hose that blocked engine intake airflow.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN22LA421
- Event ID
- 20220914105939
- Case number
- CEN22LA421
- 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. 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: 25adaee71de6ea4d4d42cdd65a9be74389ed2ec9b4890fb6fe0371115679fc78; retrieved 2026-09-16T16:01:41.497Z.