ATL99LA037 · Piper PA-24-250
Piper PA-24-250 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Monmouth Executive Airport (BLM) to Gwinnett County Briscoe Field (LZU)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL99LA037
- 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
- 0
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-24-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N7295P
- Operator
- Joseph J. Friend · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Monmouth Executive Airport (BLM), ALLAIRE, NJTo Gwinnett County Briscoe Field (LZU), Lawrenceville, GA
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- En route · descent
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel exhaustion
- 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
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The preflight inspection of the fuel tanks by the pilot revealed the tanks were filled to the bottom of the filler neck, which the pilot believed was appropriately full. After starting the engine, fuel began leaking from the fuel sump drain hose. The pilot operated the spring loaded valve handle inside the airplane which apparently stopped the leak. Shortly after departing, the engine began running rough upon which the pilot began a deviation to another airport. During this time, the engine began running smoothly whereupon the pilot continued to his initial destination. During descent, the engine began running rough and the pilot decided the tanks had been exhausted. The pilot performed a forced landing causing substantial damage. The airplane cruising endurance based on 75% power and 90 gallons of fuel on board is 5.4 hours. However, the usable fuel capacity on this airplane when the fuel tanks are filled to the bottom of the filler necks is approximately 80 gallons. The actual flight time of this aircraft was 5.55 hours. A Federal Aviation Administration inspector who examined the airplane noted only residual fuel was found in the selector valve and no leaks were found in the fuel system.
Probable cause
Inadequate planning/decision by the pilot, which resulted in fuel exhaustion due to an inadequate supply of fuel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL99LA037
- Event ID
- 20001204X00009
- Case number
- ATL99LA037
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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. 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: f416a63dfbe520810096b96b25e6394458d2ccdebd45825981e14dfe95fb8c2f; retrieved 2026-09-22T16:04:23.584Z.