MIA96FA116 · Piper PA-28-151
Piper PA-28-151 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Grand Strand Airport (CRE) to Kissimmee Gateway Airport (ISM)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA96FA116
- 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-28-151
- 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
- N6902F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grand Strand Airport (CRE), N MYRTLE BEECH, SCTo Kissimmee Gateway Airport (ISM)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern turn to base
- 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; 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
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Fuel supply, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Before departing on a cross-country flight, the airplane was 'topped off' with 40 gallons of fuel. However, during arrival at the destination, when it was on base leg for landing, the engine began running rough and lost power. The pilot said she could not recall details about the accident, but she wrote , '[I] went through [the] emergency procedures, and...put the fuel pump on, switched the fuel selector valve to the other tank....' During a forced landing, the airplane struck a tree and crashed in a residential area about 2,000' short of the runway. The flight was 4 hours and 20 minutes (4.3) in duration. Based on her flight planning, the pilot believed that she had '6 hours' of fuel available for the flight. The fuel selector was found positioned to the right tank, and the fuel boost pump was found in the 'OFF' position. About 1 pint of fuel was drained from the right fuel tank; about four gallons of fuel were drained from the left fuel tank. Total fuel capacity of the airplane was 50 gallons, of which, 48 gallons were considered to be usable fuel. No fuel spillage was noted at the crash site, and no breaches were found throughout the fuel system. Examination of the engine and fuel system did not reveal any discrepancies that would have resulted in loss of engine power.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper planning/decision, which resulted in fuel starvation and a forced landing in a residential area. A factor relating to the accident was: the inaccuracy of the expected fuel consumption.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA96FA116
- Event ID
- 20001208X05629
- Case number
- MIA96FA116
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1996-04-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e52c65b0ac42e937f40623cd22d0ca7a17f10e7fb1d95cbadd72a63f6f64879c; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:22:59.944Z.