CHI94LA327 · Piper PA-60-602P
Piper PA-60-602P · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From NM4 · Stratford, ONT to CGX · Chicago, IL
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI94LA327
- 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-60-602P
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-60
- 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
- CFSMO
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From NM4 · Stratford, ONTTo CGX · Chicago, IL
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AS THE AIRPLANE APPROACHED 22,000 FT, THE PILOT REPORTED THAT BOTH ENGINES STOPPED RUNNING WITHIN SECONDS OF EACH OTHER. DURING THE EMERGENCY LANDING APPROACH THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH TREES. ON-SCENE INVESTIGATION REVEALED NO MECHANICAL ANOMALIES WITH THE ENGINES. THE FUEL SYSTEM WAS EMPTY, OTHER THAN TRACES OF FUEL FOUND IN THE LEFT AND RIGHT ENGINE'S FUEL INJECTOR SERVOS AND FLOW DIVIDERS. BOTH WING FUEL TANK CAPS O-RINGS WERE HARDENED AND HAD FLAT SPOTS ON THEM. THE CAPS' OPENING TABS WERE ABLE TO BE OPENED AT 8 AND 3 LBS OF FORCE, RESPECTIVELY. THE COMPANY HOLDING THE AIRPLANE'S TYPE CERTIFICATE STATES AN OPENING FORCE OF 16 LBS OF FORCE IS REQUIRED. THE COMPANY'S ANNUAL INSPECTION CHECKLIST REQUIRES THAT THE TABS BE CHECKED. NO RECORD OF THIS BEING ACCOMPLISHED WAS FOUND IN THE AIRFRAME LOGBOOK. THE PILOT OPERATING HANDBOOK STATES THAT THE FUEL CAP TAB TENSION MUST BE CHECKED DURING THE PREFLIGHT INSPECTION.
Probable cause
INADEQUATE PREFLIGHT BY THE PILOT RESULTING IN FUEL EXHAUSTION. INADEQUATE MAINTENANCE AND INSPECTION WAS A FACTOR CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI94LA327
- Event ID
- 20001206X02212
- Case number
- CHI94LA327
- 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: ac32bb1f1c45518d3cc94eccbaf03cf30fcb68ea8379d5c27af923e4e7c66e4e; retrieved 2026-09-21T13:38:15.075Z.