NYC96LA098 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Concord Municipal Airport (CON) to N70 · Perkasie, PA
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC96LA098
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28-180
- 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
- N9549J
- Operator
- Morton I. Linnes · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Concord Municipal Airport (CON), Concord, NHTo N70 · Perkasie, PA
- 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 · IFR final approach
- 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 exhaustion; 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 › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › Fuel management, inadequate
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was en route at night in instrument meteorological conditions when he realized that he was low on fuel. He decided to divert to Allentown, Pennsylvania. About 3 miles from the airport, the engine lost power. During a subsequent forced landing, the airplane collided with a tree and was damaged. According to the pilot, '...After some time flying I realize that the headwinds (were) stronger than when I did my flight planning, but I (took) action too late.' Examination of the airplane by the FAA revealed the fuel tanks were empty. There were no breaks or leaks in the fuel tanks or fuel lines. No mechanical malfunction was reported by either the pilot or the FAA. The pilot reported he had 36 gallons of fuel onboard at the time of departure. According to records, the airplane had been operated over 4 hours at the time of the power loss.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper in-flight decision and planning, and his mismanagement of the fuel supply, which resulted in fuel exhaustion and the loss of engine power. Darkness and low clouds in the emergency landing area were related factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC96LA098
- Event ID
- 20001208X05848
- Case number
- NYC96LA098
- 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 1996-05-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3e99156d01805dbfa233d632d10192b0d157a60c0f5c65cca42a2be7e587bf91; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:46:25.575Z.