LAX95LA004 · Piper PA-24-250
Amelia Reid Aviation Piper PA-24-250 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV) to Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA004
- 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-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
- N8413P
- Operator
- Amelia Reid Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV)To Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV), CA
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- 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 › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, not selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH TERRAIN WHILE ATTEMPTING A FORCED LANDING IN A FIELD NEAR THE REID-HILLVIEW AIRPORT. THE FORCED LANDING WAS PRECIPITATED BY A TOTAL LOSS OF POWER WHILE ON A 2-MILE FINAL APPROACH FOR RUNWAY 31R AT REID-HILLVIEW. FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION (FAA) INSPECTORS RESPONDED TO THE ACCIDENT SITE AND EXAMINED THE AIRCRAFT. THE AUXILIARY FUEL TANKS WERE DRY OR NEARLY DRY. THE RIGHT MAIN FUEL TANK WAS ALSO VOID OF FUEL, WHILE THE LEFT TANK WAS ABOUT 1/4 FULL. THE FUEL SELECTOR VALVE WAS FOUND POSITIONED TO THE RIGHT MAIN FUEL TANK. THE ENGINE WAS RUN UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF FAA INSPECTORS. DURING THE TEST, THE ENGINE STARTED EASILY AND OPERATED NORMALLY THROUGHOUT ITS NORMAL RANGE OF POWER.
Probable cause
the pilot's mismanagement of the fuel system and his failure to select a tank containing fuel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA004
- Event ID
- 20001206X02464
- Case number
- LAX95LA004
- 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: 09161ba05d387d5b16d50b36d8e28436dd8e293aaf10e7d8593f2890f9917be6; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:32:50.779Z.