BFO95FA026 · Piper PA-28-181
Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Moraine Air Park (I73) to Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport (MGY)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO95FA026
- 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
- 1 · 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-28-181
- 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
- N8435P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Moraine Air Park (I73), Dayton, OHTo Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport (MGY), OH
- 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 · climb to 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 starvation; Stall; Tree(s)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Fuel tank selector position, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Miamisburg, OH, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DURING CLIMB, THE AIRPLANE'S ENGINE LOST POWER. DURING AN INTENTIONAL MANEUVER TO AVOID A HOME, THE AIRPLANE STALLED, COLLIDED WITH TREES, AND FELL TO THE GROUND. RESIDUAL FUEL WAS FOUND IN THE CARBURETOR BOWL AND ELECTRIC FUEL PUMP. NO FUEL WAS FOUND IN THE FUEL LINES FROM THE FUEL SELECTOR TO THE ENGINE. THE FUEL SELECTOR WAS POSITIONED ON THE RIGHT TANK. ABOUT 12 TO 15 GALLONS OF FUEL WERE RETRIEVED FROM THE LEFT WING, AND AN UNDETERMNED AMOUNT OF FUEL DRIPPED FROM THE LEFT TANK THROUGH A DAMAGED FUEL LINE. THE RIGHT WING FUEL TANK WAS EMPTY. THE RIGHT FUEL TANK WAS TORN OPEN; NO FUEL STAINS WERE NOTED AROUND THE TEAR AND NO FUEL WAS NOTED ON THE FROZEN GROUND BELOW THE RIGHT FUEL TANK. FUEL AND AIRPLANE RECORDS REVEALED THE AIRPLANE HAD FLOWN 3.1 HOURS SINCE IT WAS LAST REFUELED. AT A 75% POWER SETTING, FUEL FLOW IS ABOUT 10.5 GALLONS PER HOURS. EACH FUEL TANK HOLDS 25 GALLONS OF FUEL, OF WHICH ONE GALLON IS UNUSABLE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO SWITCH FUEL TANKS WHICH LED TO FUEL STARVATION AND SUBSEQUENT LOSS OF ENGINE POWER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO95FA026
- Event ID
- 20001207X02827
- Case number
- BFO95FA026
- 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: c6a6e4e175ea73295c38f4b59a393b0696806fb2be4881b52bd750fb37b0e381; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:53:47.603Z.