BFO94LA079 · Pitts S2B
Pitts S2B · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Wilmington Airport (ILG) to Old Bridge Airport (3N6)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO94LA079
- 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
Pitts S2B
- Aircraft type
- Pitts S2
- 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
- N93AN
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wilmington Airport (ILG), Wilmington, DETo Old Bridge Airport (3N6), Old Bridge, NJ
- 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 · 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, misjudged
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Williamstown, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT THE INDICATED FUEL ON START UP WAS APPROXIMATELY 5/8 MAIN TANK (14 GALLONS). AFTER LEVELING OFF, HE CHECKED THE INSTRUMENTS AND NOTED THAT THE FUEL LEVEL WAS ABOUT 1/8TH FUEL (2.5 GALLONS). HE ELECTED TO LAND AT THE NEAREST AIRPORT, CROSS KEYS, NEW JERSEY, WHICH WAS 12 MILES TO THE EAST. THE AIRPLANE LOST TOTAL POWER ABOUT 2 MILES WEST OF CROSS KEYS. POST ACCIDENT EXAMINATION REVEALED THE FUEL TANKS WERE EMPTY. ALSO, NO ANOMALIES WERE FOUND DURING THE INSPECTION. AN ENGINE TEST RUN WAS PERFORMED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF THE FAA, AND THE REPORT STATED, 'THIS ENGINE MET ALL NEW ENGINE TEST PARAMETERS, AS NO FAULT IN THE ENGINE COULD BE FOUND.'
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to accurately determine the fuel supply, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and a subsequent forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO94LA079
- Event ID
- 20001206X01059
- Case number
- BFO94LA079
- 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: a7c1848e26640598fcce85f1c100a3ee0186db3657224e271128ec841b97f33e; retrieved 2026-09-21T13:59:04.071Z.