ATL95LA056 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Elizabeth City Regional Airport & Coast Guard Air Station (ECG) to Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL95LA056
- 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-28-140
- 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
- N7498R
- Operator
- Reinken, Stephen · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Elizabeth City Regional Airport & Coast Guard Air Station (ECG), Elizabeth City, NCTo Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV), Savannah, GA
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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; 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Fuel system, selector/valve › Failure, partial
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT THE AIRCRAFT WAS FUELED PRIOR TO HIS DEPARTURE. ABOUT 2 HOURS AFTER DEPARTURE, THE PILOT REPORTED THAT THE AIRCRAFT ENGINE BEGAN TO RUN ROUGH. HE STATED THAT THE FUEL PRESSURE DROPPED, AND HE SWITCHED FUEL TANKS. WHILE ATTEMPTING TO CORRECT THE PROBLEM, THE AIRCRAFT ENGINE STOPPED PRODUCING POWER, AND THE PILOT WAS FORCED TO ATTEMPT AN EMERGENCY LANDING ON A HIGHWAY. DURING THE LANDING ATTEMPT, THE AIRCRAFT STRUCK TREES, AND CRASHED INTO THE TERRAIN. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRCRAFT FUEL SELECTOR VALVE REVEALED THAT THE DETENT WASHER WAS BROKEN, AND THAT 1/4 OF THE WASHER WAS MISSING. THERE WAS NO NOTICEABLE DETENT, THE SELECTOR ROTATED FREELY, AND WAS EASILY MOVED TO AN IN-BETWEEN TANKS OR 'OFF' POSITION.
Probable cause
The failure of the position washer in the fuel selector valve, which resulted in the fuel starvation of the engine.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL95LA056
- Event ID
- 20001207X03063
- Case number
- ATL95LA056
- 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: db887b201bf3c72368ac28c0056fce8770e326b0a39ec0b96d72f0869d99ab94; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:22:37.442Z.