FTW95LA175 · Briggs GLASAIR III GLASAIR II
Briggs GLASAIR III GLASAIR II · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From Ponca City Regional Airport (PNC) to Wiley Post Airport (PWA)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW95LA175
- 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
Briggs GLASAIR III GLASAIR II
- Aircraft type
- Briggs GLASAIR
- 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
- N55EE
- Operator
- Briggs, Leslie · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ponca City Regional Airport (PNC), Ponca City, OKTo Wiley Post Airport (PWA), Oklahoma City, OK
- 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)
- 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
- Fuel system › Vapor lock
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT LANDED AT PONCA CITY, OKLAHOMA, AFTER A FLIGHT FROM ST. CLOUD, MINNESOTA. THE ENGINE WOULD NOT START AFTER THE AIRPLANE WAS REFUELED. AFTER MAKING SEVERAL PERFUNCTORY CHECKS, THE ENGINE STARTED. IT RAN ROUGH INITIALLY, THEN SMOOTHED OUT. THE PILOT MADE A SHORT TEST FLIGHT AND DISCOVERED THE ENGINE OPERATED SMOOTHLY AT LOW AND HIGH MANIFOLD PRESSURE SETTINGS, BUT RAN ROUGH AT MID-RANGE MANIFOLD PRESSURE SETTINGS. SUSPECTING A FUEL VAPOR LOCK, THE RESTRICTOR VALVE IN THE FUEL INJECTOR WAS REPLACED. THE PILOT TOOK OFF FOR OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA. NEAR CRESCENT, OKLAHOMA, THE ENGINE LOST POWER AND THE PILOT MADE A FORCED LANDING IN A WHEAT FIELD. DURING THE LANDING ROLL, THE NOSE WHEEL HIT A SMALL DIP IN THE FIELD AND THE AIRPLANE NOSED OVER.
Probable cause
TOTAL NON-MECHANICAL POWER LOSS DUE TO A FUEL SYSTEM VAPOR LOCK. A FACTOR WAS THE UNEVEN TERRAIN ON WHICH THE FORCED LANDING WAS MADE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW95LA175
- Event ID
- 20001207X03299
- Case number
- FTW95LA175
- 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: 55c1facdd8fde953b322f818790b050e1e7ee3c6d12529d3f62cd73147235061; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:01:56.714Z.