CHI95LA038 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From CGX · CHIGAGO, IL to Spirit of St Louis Airport (SUS)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI95LA038
- 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-28-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N5397L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From CGX · CHIGAGO, ILTo Spirit of St Louis Airport (SUS), Chesterfield, MO
- 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 › Refueling, not obtained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Alton, IL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
BEFORE DEPARTING FOR A CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT THE PILOT HAD THE AIRPLANE REFUELED. ACCORDING TO HIS STATEMENTS, AND THE FUEL RECEIPT, THE AIRPLANE DEPARTED WITH ABOUT 36 GALLONS OF FUEL ON BOARD. THE PILOT SAID HE WAS CRUISING AT 4,500 FEET MSL WITH 75 PERCENT POWER. THE AIRPLANE'S ENGINE STOPPED RUNNING AFTER ABOUT 2 HOURS AND 29 MINUTES OF OPERATION. DURING ITS APPROACH TO A FORCED LANDING THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH A TRUCK, COMING TO REST AFTER STRIKING A BRICK WALL HEAD-ON. AN EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE'S CARBURETOR WAS NOT POSSIBLE DUE TO COLLISION DAMAGE. ACCORDING TO THE ENGINE MANUFACTURER, AND AIRPLANE PILOT OPERATING HANDBOOK, THE ENGINE SHOULD CONSUME 10 GALLONS OF FUEL PER HOUR AT THE POWER SETTING CHOSEN BY THE PILOT. NO MECHANICAL ANOMALIES WERE FOUND WITH THE AIRPLANE'S ENGINE THAT WOULD PREVENT IT FROM PRODUCING POWER.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to refuel. Factors associated with the accident were unsuitable terrain, the vehicle and building which the airplane contacted, and the dark night conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI95LA038
- Event ID
- 20001206X02576
- Case number
- CHI95LA038
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1994-11-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9c0cdcf5356475ce9254e77ca26b0a4dc5171d973d11cb8b7a26b9b7f03d5b5b; retrieved 2026-09-21T13:31:51.577Z.