SEA96LA117 · Head PITTS S-1C
Head PITTS S-1C · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA96LA117
- 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
Head PITTS S-1C
- Aircraft type
- Head PITTS S-1C
- 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
- N7BH
- Operator
- George S. Harrington · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Seattle Paine Field International Airport (PAE), Everett, WATo not recorded
- 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 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
- 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 starvation
- 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 › Starvation
- Pilot in command › Fuel management, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During an approach to land, the engine lost power on base leg. Subsequently, the pilot landed short of the airport runway, and the aircraft struck trees. The pilot reported that he took off with 22 to 24 gallons of fuel and flew for 30 minutes before the accident at an estimated 5.5 to 6.5 gallon per hour burn rate; a fuel slip indicated the aircraft received 6.3 gallons of fuel before the flight. FAA investigators found 2 to 2 1/2 inches of fuel in the bottom of the main tank forward compartment and no fuel in the main tank rear compartment. Also, they found no mechanical problems with the engine. Fire department personnel switched the aircraft's fuel selector valve from 'MR' (main rear) to 'OFF' at the accident scene. The experimental aircraft was not equipped with fuel gauges. No evidence of a current biennial flight review, aircraft condition inspection, or medical certificate was found.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate fuel management, which resulted in fuel starvation. The aircraft's lack of a fuel quantity gauge and trees in the forced landing area were related factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA96LA117
- Event ID
- 20001208X06113
- Case number
- SEA96LA117
- 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 1996-06-09.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6f8fb3535064c41b980998e3f6c8706319a8fa52c0ad1505ef2d39152705e0cd; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:46:01.677Z.