ERA25LA035 · Piper PA28 161
Piper PA28 161 · Accident: fuel starvation during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Flagler Executive Airport (FIN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA25LA035
- 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 PA28 161
- 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
- N207AB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Flagler Executive Airport (FIN), Flagler, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 35 years (built 1989)
- 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
- Fuel starvation
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A pilot and safety pilot had planned a cross-country flight to build flight time. During the initial climb after takeoff, about 200 ft above ground level, the engine started to run rough. The pilot engaged the starter in an attempt to restart the engine and turned back to the airport. The engine briefly regained power before it lost total power as they turned onto the crosswind leg of the traffic pattern, so they decided to land downwind on the departure runway. The airplane was fast and touched down long on the runway. Both the pilot and passenger applied heavy braking. The airplane subsequently departed the right side of the runway and impacted terrain. The nose landing gear separated, resulting in substantial damage to the engine mounts. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed the fuel selector valve was worn, and that when the fuel selector was placed in the left tank detent, the indicator handle could be manipulated past the detent such that fuel flow from that tank to the engine was restricted. No evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures of the airframe or engine were otherwise identified. Based on this information, it is likely that the condition of the fuel selector valve resulted in a restriction of fuel flow to the engine and the subsequent total loss of engine power during initial climb.
Probable cause
A worn fuel selector valve, which resulted in a restriction of fuel flow to the engine and a total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA25LA035
- Event ID
- 20241031195421
- Case number
- ERA25LA035
- 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: 18287c2c749391558ad1729bb92ed631a42436c89e2275ef575c86a092a892ef; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:26:19.404Z.