ATL95FA159 · WSK PZL Mielec M-26
WSK PZL Mielec M-26 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From St. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE) to Tri-Cities Regional TN/VA Airport (TRI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL95FA159
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
WSK PZL Mielec M-26
- Aircraft type
- WSK PZL Mielec M-26
- 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
- N7080L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE), ST PETERSBURG, FLTo Tri-Cities Regional TN/VA Airport (TRI), Blountville, TN
- 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 (mechanical failure)
- 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 › Excessive flow/output
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Fuel system, nozzle › Blocked(total)
- Pilot in command › Monitoring, inadequate
- Pilot passenger › Control interference, intentional
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot took off on a cross-country flight with an estimated 6.5 hours of fuel on board. After about four hours of flight, he noted a total loss of engine power. He selected a forced landing area and maneuvered to land. During the final approach to touchdown, the nose of the airplane suddenly pitched up when the front seat passenger/pilot interfered with the flight control. Subsequently, the airplane collided with the ground in a nose low attitude. Examination of the airframe failed to reveal a mechanical problem. Functional examination of the engine revealed a plugged (blocked) fuel injector nozzle. Functional examination/check of the engine disclosed that the fuel consumption rate was high. With the injector plugged, fuel consumption was about 143 pounds per hour (pph). After it was repaired, the normal fuel rate was 107 pph. The airplane was equipped with a normal fuel quantity gage.
Probable cause
a blocked fuel injector nozzle, which increased the engine fuel consumption; failure of the pilot to adequately monitor fuel consumption, which resulted in fuel exhaustion before the airplane reached the destination; and the passenger's interference with the flight controls during the emergency landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL95FA159
- Event ID
- 20001207X04145
- Case number
- ATL95FA159
- 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: f2a4e83e06315a01dceb37a74d3694276de2bf41cb057dbb2da6fc99d88e99b8; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:39:54.161Z.