Atlas / NTSB / FTW81FQD22

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event FTW81FQD22

1981-05-14 EL PASO, Texas, United States None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

N5781U Piper PA-28 None

Historical record (pre-1982)

NTSB recorded this accident in the pre-1982 coded-field schema — structured fields rather than free-text narrative. Decoded codes use established NTSB single-letter taxonomies; cause factors remain verbatim pending the Form 6120.4 codebook lookup.

Aircraft

PIPER PA-28 · N5781U

Damage

Destroyed

Craft type

Airplane

Classification

Accident

Light condition

Dawn

Weather

VMC

Phase of flight

Takeoff — initial climb (C1)

Operator type

D

Airport

EL PASO INTL

Kind of flying

B0

Weather at impact

Sky

CLEAR

Aircraft history

Serial number

000028-26606

Total time

11,000 hrs

Pilot

Certificate

Commercial — instrument

Total hours

9,115

Age

66

Investigator remarks

SAND DUNES.

Cause factors

74/C/KA C
POWERPLANT POWERPLANT FAILURE FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS Cause
74/L/AF L
POWERPLANT VALVE ASSEMBLIES
88/L/AR L
MISCELLANEOUS ACTS,CONDITIONS CARBON DEPOSITS
88/L/AJ L
MISCELLANEOUS ACTS,CONDITIONS LEAK/LEAKAGE
88/L/AN L
MISCELLANEOUS ACTS,CONDITIONS LOW COMPRESSION
83/K/K K
TERRAIN SANDY Joint factor

Decoded against the NTSB Form 6120.4 cause-factor codebook (ct_Pre1982 table). Each row shows the raw triplet, modifier (Cause / Factor / etc.), category, and specific code.

Source: NTSB pre-1982 historical archive. Docket 3 0986. Source file NTSB_1981_3_0986.txt. Modern CAROL record on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Beyond the agency record

Search this event elsewhere.

Pre-filled searches into the sources where news + community discussion of aviation events lives. External sources are reported, not agency. Treat them as signal that something happened, not as fact about what happened.

TallyAero Live Wire Aviation press

Entity-clustered aviation events in the press — last 24 hr + 30-day archive.

NTSB CAROL Agency ↗

Official agency record + docket.

NTSB Docket Agency ↗

Investigative docket: factual reports, photos, transcripts.

Aviation Safety Network Aviation press ↗

Long-running aviation incident database (Flight Safety Foundation).

Kathryn's Report Aviation press ↗

Community NTSB synthesis blog — often has photos and witness reports.

Aviation Herald Aviation press ↗

Gold-standard aviation incident blog.