NYC95LA047 · Grumman American AA-1A
Grumman American AA-1A · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Buffalo Airfield (9G0) to Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC95LA047
- 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
Grumman American AA-1A
- Aircraft type
- Grumman American AA-1
- 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
- N9457L
- Operator
- Edward Oleksy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Buffalo Airfield (9G0), Buffalo, NYTo Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT), Pittsburgh, PA
- 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
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, inadequate
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT DEPARTED BUFFALO, NEW YORK (9G0) ABOUT 1900 EST, DESTINED FOR PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA (PIT). HE ENCOUNTERED TRAFFIC DELAYS AT PIT AND DECIDED TO GO TO HIS ALTERNATE, LATROBE, PENNSYLVANIA (LBE). THE PILOT MADE A MISSED APPROACH AT LBE DUE TO WEATHER CONDITIONS, THEN DECIDED TO RETURN TO 9G0. DURING THE APPROACH TO 9G0, THE ENGINE BEGAN LOSING POWER, SO THE PILOT DIVERTED TO THE LANCASTER AIRPORT (D77). ABOUT 2234 EST, BEFORE REACHING THE RUNWAY AT D77, TOTAL POWER WAS LOST AND THE PILOT MADE A FORCED LANDING IN A FIELD. AN EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE REVEALED THAT THE FUEL TANKS WERE EMPTY.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S IMPROPER IN-FLIGHT PLANNING/DECISION, WHICH RESULTED IN FUEL EXHAUSTION DUE TO AN INADEQUATE SUPPLY OF FUEL TO RETURN TO THE HOME AIRPORT AFTER PROCEEDING TO AN ALTERNATE AIRPORT AND MAKING A MISSED APPROACH. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS (AT THE DESTINATION AND ALTERNATE AIRPORTS) AND DARKNESS IN THE EMERGENCY LANDING AREA.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC95LA047
- Event ID
- 20001206X02793
- Case number
- NYC95LA047
- 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 1994-12-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8e9ebfc1ca28eebe638a5828056dd56a5f7995c359d9fca8f472f8284f9d3a3a; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:21:46.773Z.