BFO94LA067 · Piper PA-22
Piper PA-22 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From an unrecorded airport to Pittsburgh/Butler Regional Airport (BTP)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO94LA067
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-22
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-22
- 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
- N9183D
- Operator
- Mark Smith
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Pittsburgh/Butler Regional Airport (BTP)
- 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 · climb to cruise
- 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 starvation; Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Butler, PA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS DOING A SALES DEMONSTRATION FLIGHT AND THE PROSPECTIVE BUYER WAS ABOARD. AS PART OF THE DEMONSTRATION, THE PILOT MADE A LOW PASS OVER THE RUNWAY AND THEN HE ENTERED A LEFT DOWNWIND. AS HE TURNED DOWNWIND, THE ENGINE LOST POWER. THE PILOT FORCED LANDED IN A FIELD, BUT THE AIRPLANE STRUCK TREES, AND CARTWHEELED ACROSS THE GROUND. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE REVEALED THE FUEL STRAINER AND CARBURETOR FUEL BOWL, RESPECTIVELY, HAD TWO AND ONE OUNCE OF FUEL. THE LEFT TANK HAD 8.5 GALLONS OF FUEL. A PLACARD THAT STATED 'NO TAKE-OFF ON RIGHT TANK WITH LESS THAN 1/3 TANK' WAS OVER THE RIGHT FUEL GAGE.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to select the proper fuel tank, which resulted in fuel starvation and the loss of engine power.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO94LA067
- Event ID
- 20001206X01049
- Case number
- BFO94LA067
- 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: 17fea83e9e79b573c7d5fc20d79e60d600186d38de98ea1d0e54ce5b1251f455; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:00:04.262Z.