BFO95LA096 · Grumman AA-1B
Grumman AA-1B · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From 00I · Centerburg, OH to Burke Lakefront Airport (BKL)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO95LA096
- 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 AA-1B
- Aircraft type
- Grumman 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
- N1424R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 00I · Centerburg, OHTo Burke Lakefront Airport (BKL), Cleveland, 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 · 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 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 › Planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Medina, OH, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he diverted from his intended destination because of radio problems. He stated that the airplane was in the airport traffic pattern when there was a loss of engine power. He performed a forced landing in a field of (tall) corn, and the airplane nosed over. The pilot rated passenger reported that when they were '...in the landing pattern the engine sputtered and quit because we ran out of fuel...switched to the second tank...the engine restarted for about 30 seconds...the engine again shut down because the second tank was also out of fuel.' Postaccident examination revealed no evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunction. About one to two cups of fuel was drained from the wing fuel tanks, and approximately one ounce of fuel was drained from the carburetor bowl. The fuel tanks were intact, and no evidence of fuel leakage was found at the accident site.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper planning/decision, which resulted in fuel exhaustion due to an inadequate supply of fuel. High vegetation (tall corn) in the emergency landing area was a related factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO95LA096
- Event ID
- 20001207X04432
- Case number
- BFO95LA096
- 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: 0b4fd59c39aeee5f2fd1da584521c3e039680764e0908bd5f22bd85c2cbcf380; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:04:13.857Z.